jefferson starshit.

 

With The White House currently releasing a shedload of UFO/UAP files and the likes of Reform Councillor Kieran Lay (Thorne and Moorends Ward) demanding measures to monitor UFO activity as part of reopening Doncaster Sheffield Airport I reckoned it was time to revisit some scarily realistic UFO classics from days gone by.

 

And this one is especially pertinent seeing as the UFOs from this film were so realistic that they even featured in an alleged close encounter that reportedly took place in Colima, Mexico where Javier Torres and Alejandro Duenãs supposedly took a photo of a spaceship in the late 1950s.

Obviously it was utter bollocks as the still below proves. 

 

Unlike this film obviously which is top quality entertainment from start to finish.


Starship Invasions (AKA Alien Encounter, Project Genocide, and War of the Aliens. 1977).
Dir: Ed Hunt.
Cast:  Robert Vaughn, Christopher Lee, Daniel Pilon, Tiiu Leek, Helen Shaver, Henry Ramer, Victoria Johnson, Doreen Lipson, Kate Parr, Sherri Ross, Linda Rennhofer, Richard Fitzpatrick, Ted Turner, Sean McCann, Bob Warner and Kurt Schiegl.

Precariously perched atop his toy town tractor like a giant, plaid blancmange made flesh, the multi-chinned and five bellied farmer Rudy (Schiegl from Quest for Fire and the local cake shop) seems oblivious to the large inflatable flying saucer landing in his potato field.

Remarkably for a man of his stature he remains totally unfazed (and frighteningly non sweaty) as two black leotard clad male dancers mince from the craft and shuffle him aboard.

Is he dead?

Or just drunk?

I wish I were.

Sitting patiently like some stoned walrus, Rudy is prodded and probe by his captors only really getting interested when a curved hipped, Vegas style showgirl slowly strips in front of him before beginning what can only be a complex Martian seduction dance.

Crikey.

Ronnie Corbett gingerly ran thru' the giants fingers.

The next day Rudy can't wait to tell the locals about his escapades both inside a genuine UFO as well as inside a genuine space whore but unfortunately everyone reckons he's a drunken, inbred freak.

Which if I'm honest he is.

One person who does believe him tho' is sexily slick haired UFO specialist Professor Allan Duncan (Vaughn whose alimony must have been crippling that month) who makes a trip to visit our portly pal.

Examining both the landing site and Rudy's ample arse, Duncan reveals that both have recently been dowsed with radiation (tho' only one has been dowsed with Martian muck) and that incredibly aliens have been visiting the Earth for years.

My word!

Vaughn: skint.

Meanwhile, aboard the UFO, the evil plant pot wearing alien commander Ted Rameses (a seriously fucking unhappy Christopher Lee) and his motley band of space dancers are busy planning their next diabolical kidnap caper.

Lee: no shame.

It transpires that poor Rudy was not the first to be abducted (tho' he was by far the largest breasted) nor will he be the last for no sooner has Rameses explained the plot that the crew go searching for an Earth female to fiddle with too.

An preferably one in ill fitting flesh coloured pants just like your mums.

But for the love of God why? I hear you cry.

Well, it seems that Rameses and his racy chums are not, in fact, an intergalatic dance troupe but an invasion party from the distant planet Alpha.

A distant planet that's sun is about to go supernova.

So understandably our Alphanian chums are looking for a new planet (albeit one with a burgeoning spandex business) to colonise.

Simple when you think about it.

If you think she looks uncomfortable now just wait till the Martian mooth shite-in starts.

Unluckily for us it appears that Earth fits the bill nicely giving Rameses an excuse to unleash his massive weapon in order to kill all humanity before signalling the Alpha colony ships that are currently in hiding behind the dark side of the moon.

Tho' how an entire invasion fleet can keep itself hidden behind a Pink Floyd album is never explained.

I'm assuming that it's the vinyl version seeing as it would be considerably bigger than trying to conceal yourself behind a cassette or CD.

But I digress.

Humanity has one last line of defence tho', as the justice (and lard by the size of their waistlines) loving intergalactic council, the fantastically - and not at all cliché named  The League of Races have a secret base on Earth; a giant pyramid cunningly hidden under what seems to be the directors duck pond.

Christopher Lee, up the casino, Anchorhead, 1977....Yesch!

Knowing that he must destroy the base if his plan is to succeed, Rameses lands at the base and pretends that he needs the toilet.

The League, being either really nice or really dim send a giant silver sex toy named Deirdre to escort the rotten Rameses to the little boys room, giving his crew ample time to sabotage the cloaking device of a League UFO that's been busy taking photos of popular tourist attractions.

When the aforementioned flying saucer suddenly becomes visible to the local populace whilst hovering over the local Aldi the army have no choice but to blow it up.

The swines!

With all the good guys running about trying to figure out what caused the force field failure (try typing that when you're drunk, tho' thinking about it, it mustn't be too difficult as the writer managed to) Rameses and his crew have time to put bizarre laser firing matchbox and string contraptions on their fingers and take over the pyramid, murdering a room of space whores and seriously injuring Deirdre in the process.

Behold the future of pleasure! the android Jade Goody sex doll with hyper speed tit wanking action!

It's now time for our hideously hatted intergalactic bastard to contact his fellow Alphans and order them to aim their patented mentalist beam at Earth, turning hitherto normal folk into crazed murderers.

Rameses however hasn't realised that a small band of Leaguers, led by grand admiral Hilary Zoonie have managed to slip away in a UFO and are racing to contact the only humans who are gullible enough to help them in their fight.

Oh, and repair their space ship.

Yup that'll be Professor Duncan and his man-breasted computer expert brother Malcom (Ramer, from the TV movie Sodbusters and also your grannies bed).

Christopher Lee was startled by the space parrot that suddenly perched itself on his shoulder.

With Malcom's help (and his extra large underpants to cover a hole in the hull), Hilary can modify the UFO's communications system and send an S.O.S. to the main League headquarters - you'd think it'd be a wee bit more complicated than that wouldn't you? - but don't worry because whilst all this action-packed repair work is going on we can sit back and enjoy an arse numbing lecture on alien culture and technology as Duncan quizzes the crew about building the ancient pyramids and why the only woman on board has such wobbly thighs and a head so large that it has it's own gravitational field.

But saying that tho' she is the most attractive member of the cast.

Sorry Mr. Vaughn.

All I can say is how fucking stunning is this?

Finally, with humanity under attack by the aforementioned death ray and Duncan's wee girl slowly going mad and attacking tomatoes in the local Asda, the Alphan invasion fleet and the League saucers face-off in the inky blackness of outer space to start a war in the stars.

Obviously this would be way too expensive to show so it's back to Earth where rotten Rameses is using the superior calculators found aboard the League base to tip the scales in his favour, whilst Duncan's frighteningly plain (and bra-less) wife has picked up a kitchen knife and begun to slash at her wrists....

Will Hilary, Professor Duncan, that bald bird and Malcolm be able to defeat Rameses and stop the mad gun before Earth is destroyed?

Christopher Lee contemplates becoming the filling in a particularly crabs ridden sex sandwich.

Starting his career with the soft core porn classics Pleasure Palace and Diary Of A Sinner, it wasn't long before writer/director/producer and rhyming slang named UFO nut Ed Hunt - who by this point was obviously tired of exposed arses - decided instead to expose the truth behind UFO's, firstly with the little seen Nicky Fylan starrer Point of No Return and then with this universally acclaimed science factual epic.

Starship Invasions is quite possibly the greatest science fiction movie of that name ever to come out of Canada in 1977 and probably the only one to feature Christopher Lee painfully forced into a childs jumpsuit whilst wearing a pizza box on his head.

Blatantly ripped off by non-trick pony M Night Shyamalan in the hideous The Happening (tho' without the spaceships and the man from UNCLE obviously) Starship Invasions storyline was based in part on factual accounts of real UFO abductions with costumes and saucer designs taken from true life testimonies, in fact the terrifying 'probing of Rudy' scene was an exact duplicate of a situation the director found himself in as a teenager.

Imagine a Canadian Star Trek The Motion Picture, only shit(ter).

With a budget over almost £38 (the biggest amount ever invested in a Canadian film up to this point) Starship Invasions unfortunately sank into obscurity, beaten at the box office by a rival film that was hastily put into production to capitalise on the excitement caused by the announcement of Starship Invasions.

This immature imitator was Close Encounters of The Third Kind directed by Steven Spielberg (and whatever happened to him?) proving once and for all that when the audience has the choice between terrifying fact or whimsical fiction that they'll choose the latter every time.

Another reason for the films lack of financial success can possibly be attributed to the hyper real and almost documentary style in which it was shot.

Like all great auteurs Hunt litters his film with purposely mismatched military stock footage and endless, repeated shots of Rameses saucer in flight, imbuing the film with a nightmare quality associated with UFO encounters but wrongly attributed to cost cutting and incompetence by many ill educated 'critics' of the time.

But the directors greatest achievement in extra-terrestrial accuracy is in scenes featuring the aliens 'communicating'.

It's widely reported in the scientific world that many alien races communicate telepathically, a fact that many lesser research movies fail to adhere to due to the complex effects work that this would involve.

Hunt however embraced the challenge in both his sweaty, sausage like hands, hiring a massive team to actually teach the actors telepathy and mind controlling powers, his crew working alongside them to develop the worlds only pyschic camera to enable them to record the scenes.

Again naysayers and critics, their minds obviously blown by such a concept accused Hunt of cost cutting by filming many scenes without sound, recording and inserting the dialogue later.

This left Hunt a broken man and it was a long two years before he returned to directing.

And what a return it was, helming as he did probably the best episode of the epic teevee series Greatest Heroes of the Bible, the producers realising that only a genius of Hunt's talents would be worthy of re-imagining the classic tale of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar and brave enough to cast ex-Happy Days star Donnie (Ralph Malph) Most as Daniel.

(Pie) Tin Machine.

But by this time a new younger breed of directors had come forward, spurned on by the aforementioned Spielberg and Star Wars creator George Lucas' kid friendly and non threatening science fiction style leaving Hunt's hyper-realistic visions to wallow unloved in the cinematic backwaters of celluloid obscurity, unknown but to only a few film historians and those fans lucky (and clever) enough to truly appreciate his genius.

drac attack.

Just heard the news that genre stalwart Jack Taylor has died at the grand old age of 99.

 

Regular (?) readers of this blog will probably be aware of him from such classics as Pieces, Nightmares Come at Night, The Killer is One of Thirteen, The Ghost Galleon, Night of the Sorcerers and Edge of The Axe among other top quality movies but to me I'll always remember him from the classic Vampire's Night Orgy.

Which bizarrely is why we are here.

You see, way back in 1973 Jack Taylor dubbed the late great Paul Naschy in the Javier Aguirre blood and boobs epic Count Dracula's Great Love, which also once had a poster for it that accidentally used a still from the aforementioned Vampire's Night Orgy.

It's like pottery.

 So with that..... 

Count Dracula's Great Love (AKA El gran amor del Conde Dracula, 1973).
Dir: Javier Aguirre.
Cast: Paul Naschy, Rosanna Yanni, Haydée Politoff, Mirta Miller, Ingrid Garbo and Víc Winner.

"The only thing you can think of is men. You'd sleep with a broom if it had pants!"

It's a cold dark night (is there any other kind?) in the backwoods of Transylvania (beautifully portrayed by the forests between the towns of Dénia and Xàbia in the eastern Spanish province of Alicante) Where comedy tramps and general ne'er-do-wells Geoff and Brian are busy delivering a huge wooden crate (that is to be fair not as wooden as either of them) to the local abandoned sanatorium cum creepy castle.

Reckoning that they're not getting paid enough to drag crates around assorted shrubbery at night the pair decide instead to open the crate and steal whatever trinkets are stored inside, unfortunately all it contains is the skeletal remains of a lady in a bad pound shop wig so - being a wee bit depressed at this - the pair excitedly explore the castle in the hope of finding something of value to steal.

Unfortunately for the dodgy duo they're being stalked by an unseen assailant who, after suddenly jumping out of a wardrobe bites Brian (to death) before planting an axe in Geoff's skull.

Which is nice.

Thanks to the wacky world of the shoddy dissolve and even shoddier titles we're quickly off to meet the studly Imre (Winner from Vengeance of the Zombies) who alongside a quintet of lovelies including the cute as a button Karen (the practically perfect Politoff), blonde bombshell (well more like a bombsite really), the seriously severe Senta (Fangs of The Living Dead's Yanni), pouty Elke (Naschy regular Miller) and his secret sexy squeeze Marlene (the terrifyingly chinned Garbo - no not that one - the one that was in that 'saucy' football comedy Las Ibericas FC) is traveling via coach to the nearby town of Cleftplate to take up residency as a professional bassoon player.

Admit it, even a sly tit wank would kill you.

Whilst regaling the laydees with daring tales of pub gigs and life on the festival circuit he realizes that they are about to pass thru' the exact spot in which  Jonathan Harker and Doctor Van Helsing killed Count Dracula and not one to miss a trick - or the chance of a quick glance at a heaving bosom - excitedly tells his companions the areas full gory story.

You see it wasn't only Dracula who caused terror in these parts as a few years after his (un)death a Doctor Terry Kargos bought the sanatorium and opened a men only gym cum sauna which it turns out seemed to be a cover for something a wee bit more sinister.

It appeared that many of the folk there died due to anemia and the doctor was suspected of harvesting their blood and using it in bizarre experiments.

Obviously he was hounded out of town by the locals and the place left abandoned.

Until recently that is when a Doctor Philip Marlow (Naschy channeling Liberace and The Count from Sesame Street via a drunken old uncle) paid a princely sum of £28 for it in order to open a drive-thru' garden centre.

Sounds legit.

"I fang you!"

All this talk of blood and gore spooks the horses causing the coach to lose a wheel and the driver getting kick in the face by a pony, killing him (the driver that is not the horse) instantly, leaving Imre and co. little choice but go to the castle and see if Doctor Marlow is at home.

Luckily he is (it would be a short film if he weren't) and graciously offers the group a cup of tea and a biscuit as well as a bed - or five - for the night.

After a quick snack and a plot-filling chat the group retire to bed (as opposed to retiring to the Costa Del Sol like your granddad) where sometime after midnight - probably - Karen is woken by a spooky noise and goes to investigate where she comes face to face with a now undead Brian who is now a vision of comedy fangs and ketchup.

As he moves in to bite her smooth, swan-like neck (as in it's long not covered in feathers) he is quickly chased away by a camply cape clad figure who then carries her back to bed.

"Put it in me!"

As our merry band head down for breakfast the next morn they are surprised to discover that their generous host is nowhere to be found, instead he's left a note explaining that he's off checking his traps* in the woods and to help themselves to Rice Crispies.

Hmmmm.....do you think he may actually be sleeping cos he's really Dracula?

Whilst Imre and Marlene head off into the woods to 'look for help', Karen, Elke and Senta decide to entertain themselves by having a poke around the castle's nooks and crannies which is kinda disappointing as I was hoping that they'd indulge in some nude volleyball but dem the breaks I guess, so the audience has to make do with them happening across Marlow's library where the find
- alongside a complete collection of Razzle and a dog-eared copy of The Book of Sex – the fabled diary of Van Helsing.

Senta, being the least thick begins to read aloud from the diary much to the chagrin of Elke who find it a wee bit too scary (no really) and begs her to stop.

Something I guess she doesn't often do seeing as how unconvincing she sounds.

Karen however seems fascinated by the tale of Dracula and his dead daughter and steals the book away for later.

...And they still can't get it tuned to 6 Music.

With not much else to fill the running time with we jump forward to lights out where after tuck  (sorry my public schoolness is showing) Karen curls up in bed to continue the terrifying tale, which is presented to us in groovy negative - presumably to hide the identity of the actor playing Dracula, which is a wee bit odd seeing as we can all guess that it's Naschy.

It does look nice tho'.

Pity the diary is utter drivel then, seeing as it appears to say that Dracula, although resurrected on an almost monthly after being slain is never 100% complete and can only regain his full unearthly powers by having sex with a virgin that has fallen in love with him for his personality as opposed to falling for him via the power  of spooky supernatural seduction.

Give that a try next time you're out on the pull lads and see how far that gets you.

Not only that but if this ever happens then Dracula can use his new found loves blood to then resurrect his daughter Sharon.

You remember, the skeleton from earlier.

See? They're not just making this shite up, there's a purpose for everything.

Insert cock here.

Whilst all this psychedelic flash-backery is going down Imre is wandering the hallways looking for the toilet when he's viscously attacked by Brian and given a bloody good biting, turning him into a vampire who then, in turn, messily attacks poor Marlene turning her too.

Phew, it's all go.

Marlow, tho' is too busy to notice as he's taken to following an oblivious Karen around like a lost puppy.

Albeit one with a huge nob and a really hairy back and arse.

Senta meanwhile has decided that she fancies a wee bit of naked Naschy herself so plans to seduce the doctor by falling into a bear trap, have him carry her to her room then expose her ample breasts and jump on him.

Who says romance is dead?

Unable to resist Senta's charms (OK tits) Marlow indulges in a wee bit of 'the sex' with her only to discover (disappointingly) that not only wasn't she a virgin but that he'd been thinking of Karen all the time.

Obviously the only course of action is to turn Senta into a vampire and go try his luck with Karen.

However as he's wiping his cock on his cape and scrubbing the blood from his mouth who should turn up but Imre hungry for blood.

And the only person with any left in the castle is Karen.

Much slow-style stage fighting ensues as Marlow tosses Imre out of the window and onto a handy spiked gate.

As he turns to dust Karen comes to realize that vampires are in fact real and that the king of them is standing infront of her professing undying love.

Will Karen and Draculabegin a romance to rival Harry and Meghan?

Will there be a wee bit more uncalled for - yet very welcome - nudity?

Will Paul Naschy ever shave his back?

It takes a special talent to get a still from a totally different movie on the poster. Fair play to him whoever it was.

From the fevered mind of Paul Naschy and the 70s busiest director (and official wrath of God) Javier Aquirre comes (quite literally) this supernatural tale of femmes, fangs and fancy  shirts all wrapped up in a blood red bow of sex and violence of the kind only found in Eurocinema of a certain age.

True the dubbing is ludicrously done, the effects are of a quality usually reserved for Christmas panto's and none of the lead actresses dresses fit but that just adds to its charm.

And talking of dubbing, as already mentioned, if you think Naschy sounds familiar that's because he's using the voice of cult Eurohorror actor Jack Taylor whose CV reads like a must watch of quality cinema taking in everything from The Ghost Galleon to Pieces via The Vampire's Night Orgy (perhaps that's where the poster mix up came from) and Conan The Barbarian.

Rest in peace sir.

And you think your mum is at bingo.

 Anyway back to the film at hand (before you start thinking this is a proper film blog) and while the obvious Spanish settings are in no way convincing as Transylvania the movie is so endearing as to make such trifling details irrelevant - we're here to see blood, babes, boobs and the big man himself take on the role of Dracula and whilst he may not hit the dizzy heights of Udo Kier (or Jack Palance) Naschy's vaguely puppy-like love lorn count is a fair extension of his more famous portrayal of the melancholic Waldemar Daninsky and is all the better for it.

It's just a pity he never donned the cape and fangs again.

Rum, sodomy and the lash.

But what of the rest of the cast I hear you cry.

Well whilst Víc Winner is all bushy sideburns and chiseled good looks his 'acting' style veers wildly from flat-packed shelf to homemade drinks cabinet the ladies do their best to walk and talk at the same time as they vainly attempt to stay inside their dresses that whilst looking very pretty appear to have been handed out at random.

Rosanna Yanni seems to spend the entire film hunched over in an attempt to get the obviously child sized communion dress to cover her breasts.

Poor lamb.

But at least Haydée Politoff looks yumsome.

As always.
   
But none of this matters as what we have here is a piece of pure Paul (Naschy) perfection that promises a veritable volcano of violence, sex and death which it delivers it in buckets and with a sneaky side helping of too-tight corsets and odd accents to boot.

If not cinematic gold it's at least a nice bit of terrifying tin.

























*As in things to catch animals in, not young guys dressed as sexy anime-style laydees for the sexual gratification of others - thought I'd clear that up.

nemod syad.

Girls are away at a dance performance so me and the boychild have a lads weekend planned where we eat crisps, drink pop and watch only the best movies.

Mausoleum (1983).
Dir: Michael Dugan.
Cast: Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Bresee, Norman Burton, Maurice Sherbanee, LaWanda Page, Laura Hippe, Sheri Mann, Julie Christy Murray, Chu Chu Malave and Gene Edwards.

 

There's some strange shit goin' on in this house!

Like any good horror film worth its salt we open on a windswept graveyard where the young - and frighteningly dog faced - Susan (bony kneed Murray in her only film role outside those shorts she did to pay her way thru' college) is mourning her recently deceased mother as her posh tottie-like aunt Cora (Logan's Run and Swinging Barmaids star Hippe who killed herself shortly after making this movie - take from that what you will) pats her on the shoulder uncomfortably whilst offering to buy her ice cream and a pony to replace her dearly departed parent.

Why do I never get offered ponies?

Oblivious to all the bribery being offered (and wanting a unicorn probably - girls are never happy) Susan legs it and soon takes refuge in an old superimposed rainswept and spookily lit mausoleum (bearing her family name - Nemod - I'm sure her family must originally be from the village Nilbog featured in Troll2.) that is in no way at all scary or foreboding.

No seriously it's not, it actually looks for all the world like it's been outlined in Sharpie the matte work is so shit.

As a spooky fog rolls from its gates Susan pricks her finger on a crown of thorns hanging outside before entering the tomb to be confronted by a shadowy figure with unkempt nails who offers her blessed relief whilst making a passing pedophiles head explode.

Which seems legit.

I can see your house from here Peter.

 
Thru' the power of editing and rudimentary dissolves we're suddenly in the present day (which is the past now....scary eh?) where we find a now adult Susan (ex Playboy bunny Bresee in a performance that's all tits and teeth but not much else which at least means she fits in right at home here) living in a massive house albeit one filled with way too many windows and staircases than is needed and happily married to the ferret-like business bloke Oliver (Starcrash 'star', B'-movie god and once the world's youngest ordained preacher, Gortner) and obsessed with the colour brown for some reason.


Seriously, the house, her clothes, the plants - everything in this movie has the colour palette of dried cack.

Except when a demon appears then the fucker is lit up like a disco.

But I digress.

All seems normal (if you ignore everyone's stilted body language and speech patterns obviously) until that is Susan starts to act a wee bit strangely - or is that just begins to act?

Answers to the usual address.

Oliver thinks he has the perfect answer to Susan's woes so decides to take her disco dancing at the local nite spot where they enjoy (well I say enjoy but to be honest they just look dead inside tho' at least Bresee tries her hardest to look hip n' happening as she pulls a classic 'Le disco duck face') frugging away to some turgid instrumental disco track that even Mike Read would balk at for being too shit.

And he wrote the UKIP Calypso if you can remember that far back.

Luckily (for us) the whole ordeal is cut short when a drunken beardy man (who I was convinced was original Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty but was in fact Gene Edwards who played him in the 1990 remake/sequel) tries to molest Susan on the dance floor whilst Oliver is on the phone causing the couple to call it a night and head home.

Unfortunately the drunk bloke follows them but after a wee bit of shoving he wanders off to his car in order to drunkenly drive home, probably killing a few kids on the way.

But hey it's the 80s and no-one cared back then.

Suddenly and without warning - if you don't count the spooky score - Susan's eyes begin to glow green as she stares at the car for what seems like an eternity (thanks in part to the eye effect being animated over a still) before causing it to burst into flames, trapping and burning weirdy beardy to death inside.

"Eye hen!"

 

And from then on things go from bad to worse as poor Susan experiences angry mood swings and night sweats before turning into a full-blown psycho when she starts offering Ben the sleazy gardener (council estate David Hess, Sherbanee, who's probably been in other stuff but I can't be bothered checking) fresh cups of coffee whilst stroking her breasts then having sex with him in the garage and finally murdering the poor sod (to death) with a garden fork.

Aunt Cora is next on the death wish list, slashed to death whilst being levitated over the staircase after popping round with a cake.

Luckily no-one seems to notice until Oliver wakes up one night to find Susan sitting in a chair spouting gibberish and sporting a pair of comedy horns on her now donkey like head.

Terrified he runs down stairs and quickly calls their old friend and family psychiatrist Dr. Simon Andrews (Burton from Simon, King of the Witches which scarily is actually sitting on my desk as I type this) to ask for help.

It seems that Susan had a few mental health issues as a child due to her dad dying whilst trying to exorcise the demon that had possessed her mother.

Turns out that according to family legend a demonic curse has been passed down the female line of the Nomed family ever since some bizarre incident involving a crown of thorns (what? another one? - maybe this is important) and a sausage roll way back in 1692.

Anyway with all this demonic possession shite going around and with the movie hitting the halfway point it's time for a wee bit of comic relief so enter (roughly behind the bins) the Farrell's cleaner cum housemaid Elsie (Sanford and Son's Page who bizarrely enough at the start of her career, while performing as a burlesque style stripper in Missouri, was billed as "The Bronze Goddess of Fire" because she could light cigarettes with her fingertips*) who - in either a piece of post-modern comedy genius or ill advised racial stereotyping spends her time rolling her eyes whilst shouting out stuff like:

"There's some strange shit goin' on in this house!"
 
"No more grievin'. I'm leavin'!"

And the classic

"Great googily moogily!"

Whilst running about in high-speed effects whilst comedy 'wah wah' music plays in the background.

I'll not comment.
 

Skulk.

With time - and anything remotely resembling logic - running out, Andrews contacts an old friend and colleague of his, the boyishly barnetted Dr. Roni Logan (Mann) for help.

Which is lucky cos she knows loads about demons and the like.

Bizarrely all she does is rereads the family diary as it turns out that the way to kill the demon and Save Susan is actually written in it.

In English and everything.

Yup it appears that the pesky crown of thorns from earlier is important to the plot and all Adams has to do is place it on Susan's head whilst she's not looking.

This will in turn force the demon back to it's tomb giving our heroes time to then place it on the tomb itself locking the creature inside.

Sorted.

Andrews probably skipped that bit but makes amends by phoning Oliver to warn him that when he returns home from work not under any circumstances to have sex with his wife in the bathroom as her breasts may grow teeth and bite him to death.

Which is fair enough.

"Are you the farmer?"

Meanwhile back at the house an Hispanic bloke (Malave who scarily actually had an acting career of sorts, appearing in everything from A Force of One alongside Chuck Norris to multiple roles in the Barney Miller TV show and starring alongside the 'statuesque' Dona Speir in Fit To Kill) is delivering plants and the like to Susan.

But that's not the only thing he wants to fertilize and he's soon in the kitchen phoning his boss to say he'll be late back to the garden centre as Susan seductively flashes her ample breasts at him.

Don't worry tho' as there's no time for any more uncomfortable sex scenes as Susan has t go shopping for some shit occult based art before the movies climax so she quickly makes the guys head melt before going heading to the mall.

No really.

She actually goes shopping and steals some sub Boris Vallejo fantasy art** - she also kills a bald man by dropping him on a spiky sculpture that just happens to be sitting conveniently  on a picnic table before heading home for a well deserved bubble bath.

It's interesting to note that the mentalism and murders isn't the thing that sends Oliver over the edge but the crap art scattered around the house so to prove his manliness he storms into the bathroom to confront his wife.

"Spice Girls number one for Christmas...MONSTA!"

His anger soon subsides tho' as Susan steps out of the bath and into his arms but as the pair embrace Susan begins to change.

It seems that the demon is aware that Andrews is attempting to steal the crown of thorns from the mausoleum at end its reign of terror.

 Will Andrews succeed?

Will Oliver get eaten by the terrifying tittie teeth?

Will Susan actually put some proper clothes on?

At the height of the 80s low budget horror resurgence film maker Michael Dugan (director of the classic Raging Hormones, Youtube shorts creator and the man behind a little something called Chubby Chasers - go figure) decided what the world needed was a new scream queen to rival the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne King and Linnea Quigley so to that end decided to unleash the 'buxom and beautiful blonde actress' (according to IMDB) Bobbie Bresee upon the world in his second feature - after the 1976 family comedy Super Seal - Mausoleum.

Now don't all thank him at once.

A living embodiment of everything terrifying about the 80s - big boobs an even bigger blonde barnet and teeth so white they could blind you, Bresee is the main focus of the movie and Dugan structures the whole endeavor to showcase her talents as she runs the emotional gamut from happy to sad to sexy via sleepy and maybe bashful and it's her powerhouse performance that makes the movie so compelling.

Only joking.

He cast her cos she didn't mind getting her kit off.

But she's not the only one.

If there's a chance that a character can appear topless Dugan grabs it - from 'star' Marjoe Gortner pulling angry cum faces on a faux fur rug to the mightily manbreasted Norman Burton seductively taking a phone call in his bed, we're not even spared the sight of Maurice Sherbanee's sweaty pot belly being on show as he wanders around with the bottom of his shirt unbuttoned rubbing it seductively as he lusts after Bresee.

None of this nudity would be that bad tho' if any of the cast actually looked happy doing it but as it stands they all just appear nervous and wishing they were anywhere else but there.

I just sat watching hoping and praying that the director would realise that if the actors look uncomfortable pretending to have sex or being naked then maybe he'd see that we the viewer will feel uncomfortable watching.

Poor sods.

Except Sherbanee obviously - he seemed to be reveling in his new found freedom.

Creepy bastard.

"Shite in mah mooth!"

This isn't helped by the cast actually coming across as quite likeable - Gortner is his usual inoffensive self whilst Burton and the rest appear to be enjoying themselves (mostly) and Bresee comes across as a likeable enough person out of her depth both onscreen and off which means at time rather than reeling in terror at the horrors onscreen you're cringing like a parent watching your offspring mess up their lines in the school nativity.

Hopefully not whilst naked tho.

Its saving grace tho' is the fantastic make-up FX work from the late great  John Carl Buechler whose career spanned Friday 13th Part VII to Hatchet and everything in between - the gore effects (especially the head explosion and melting man) are top notch and it still gives me a warm feeling to see a full prosthetic bodysuit on screen even if at times it looks more Space Precinct than Pazuzu.

Fairly mad, sometimes bad - frustratingly so at times - Mausoleum is a harmless and fairly pain free way to spend an evening provided you have enough beer and crisps at hand plus for anyone who's ever wonder what a school disco would look like if lit by Mario Bava then the possession scenes will answer that question for you.

And there isn't much higher recommendation than that.












































* She also swallowed fire and touched flaming torches to her naked body during her act as well as appearing on Rupaul's Supermodel Of The World Album and playing Rupaul.s mum in the Back To My Roots video.



**Tho' let's be honest he did produce some utter wank himself....like this Star Wars inspired piece for example:

day of the delia.

 Celebrating the aural genius of the late, great Delia Derbyshire on her birthday (as everyone should).

may the fourth...

...be with you!

Celebrate Star Wars Day with this Sith-tastic mix of Skywalker inspired sounds remixed for your dancing pleasure. 

Caution: may contain Gungans.

bungle bonce.

Celebrating Star Wars Day by revisiting THE best sequel not featuring Adam Driver....So enjoy and...

Os Trapalhões Na Guerra Dos Planetas (AKA The Bunglers In The War Of The Planets, Brazilian Star Wars 1978).
Dir: Adriano Stuart.
Cast: Pedro Aguinaga, Renato Aragão, Carlos (The Jackal) Bucka, Wilma Dias, Carlos (The Kettle) Kurt, Tereza Mascarenhas and some other folk I've never heard of.

Opening with a huge car chase that would put the makers of Top Gear to shame, the 'heroes' of Os Trapalhões Na Guerra Dos Planetas (top urine-stained Brazilian comedy tramps 'the Bunglers') are on the run from what looks like a ton of disgruntled Pikies suffering from narcolepsy, seeing as a huge number of them appear to be driving their cars into rivers for no reason.

It seems that one of the bunglers (the oldest yet least stinky one that wears the piss yellow sports jacket and pervert hat) amusingly named Didi, has slept with the head pikies missis and his friends/family/cousins are in hot pursuit looking for revenge.

After about twenty minutes of 'wah wah' guitar and exploding dune buggies the bunglers hide behind a convenient rock and wait for the bad men to get bored and leave.

"sniff mah coat hen".

That night, whilst the bunglers are sleeping, a turtle with a candle glued to its shell shuffles thru their camp and, in a stroke of comedy genius two of the bunglers think it's a ghost!

Oh how we laughed!

But just as you think it can't possibly get any funnier, the turtle manages to set light to the third, fattest bungler!

While he’s running around in circles going "Woo! woo!" whilst slowly (and probably very painfully) burning alive a passing spaceship touches down near their campsite.

Aboard is the handsome Prince Flik (no doubt referring to his almost Farrah like locks) who tells the four comedy legends (but not the turtle) that he needs their special 'talents' to retrieve a vital part of the fabled 'brain computer' and stop an evil space tyrant named Zuco from destroying his home world.

What? were Torchwood busy? I mean it's not like the plot was too far fetched for them.

A spaceship yesterday.

Our heroes, given the choice between jail time for forcing themselves on old ladies or a trip into space quickly agree and jump aboard Flik's starship where they meet his Red Setter-like, new romantic styled co-pilot Chewbacca (or Dave, I'm not sure).

He (it?) and Flik have an in depth chat in reverse Portuguese before Dave blindly stabs at a few buttons and prepares for take off in a blaze of coloured lights and sweet wrappers not seen since the heady days of Crackerjack.

"Hello Dave?"

Touching down on Flik's home planet, they immediately encounter what looks like an army of hooded midgets attacking a group of desert dwelling Arabs outside a series of stone portaloos.

It's like Disney does ISIS but with fewer beheadings.

Possibly.

Spoiling for a fight the comedy quads rush in and beat the shite out of anyone within punching distance in hyper-slow motion that makes The Matrix 'bullet time' look like the cheap trick it is.

Every time one of our heroes kicks, shoves or stumbles the same clip is shown again and again, accompanied by a hellish 'doo doo' disco score.

It's like mind melding with Jimmy Savile.

Runner up of the Lindy England lookalike contest (ask your mum).

About three days into the slo-mo spectacular the villain of the piece, the evil Darth Zuco appears from nowhere and drags the beautifully big hipped blond bombshell Princess Myrna (who?) from out of one of the portaloos before legging it across the dunes to what looks like a waiting gold vibrator (with wings).

Whilst this is going down (phnar), the warring aliens get bored and leave but not before blowing up one of the toilets with a painted air freshener cum grenade (as in an air freshener disguised as an explosive, not a grenade filled with man yoghurt, tho' that would be interesting) possibly as a political act lost on British viewers.

"Touch my big black helmet".

What isn't lost on viewers from dear old Blighty tho' is the effect that the explosion has, causing as it does four fairly attractive (in a cruise ship entertainer way) Lycra clad ladies to come running out of the smoke like a cheap(er) version of Benny Hill's Hill's Angels.

If that were at all possible**.

The bungling buddies start rubbing their filthy hands with delight but spoilsport Flik starts shouting about having to rescue the princess.

Relax girls....they're single.
And old enough to be your granddad.

Agreeing with Flik (and obviously fancying a wee bit of manass) Didi attempts to drag the others away from the babes with a promise of letting them borrow his hat.

Seriously, why would I make this shit up?

Things get very tense before a compromise is reached and the ladies offer to go with them to the local space disco to look for clues.

Let's be honest tho'...it's still more entertaining than this shite.

Arriving at the local nite-spot (which looks to all intents and purposes like Barry Noble's in Nottingham circa 1985) the bunglers manage to persuade the DJ to stop polluting the airwaves with farty sci-fi warblings and play some hi-energy disco instead but when the alien clientèle begin to 'get down' to the hot tunes the jolly jokers start beating them up.

Just like Dudley then.

For Didi this seems a step too far, he leaves the disco to buy a space laser gun, accidentally murdering five innocent bystanders in cold blood whilst 'testing' it and blowing up Flik’s landspeeder along the way.

If that wasn't enough, in a fabulously misplaced piece of slapstick he finds he has no money to buy the gun so he shoots the salesman dead and steals it.

Ha ha ha.

A normal Saturday night in Dudley.

Now the film begins to unravel and self destruct into an almost unwatchable display of violent comedy, giant birds and poverty row effects as our merry band decide to hit the trail in search of the princess and the evil Zuco.

All manner of random threats are thrown at the group from invisible monsters to flying oranges (yep....killer fruit......oh my sides) via a badly matted 'giant' spider and the aforementioned bird beast.

"Pluck off!"

Every time they encounter a new peril everyone throws their arms in the air, jogs on the spot whooping then runs away.

And I do mean every time.

Every.

Single.

Bloody.

Time.

For around half an hour.


Eventually (and obviously bored waiting for our heroes to discover his lair) Zuco sends them an open invitation to his house to exchange their half of the computer (admit it, you'd forgotten about that hadn't you?) for the captive Myrna.

What follows is a series of bluffs and double bluffs that would confuse even a very unbluffable (is that even a word? cos it should be) man.

The outcome is that Didi ends up in a box (not a coffin unfortunately) and Flik is left holding a green painted dwarf in a frighteningly lifelike Myrna mask.

Everything is now set for the final battle.

Thank fuck.

Didi scores first blood by freezing Zuco and then spending twenty five minutes dancing with his frozen body, popping a selection of funny hats on him, booting him up the arse etc. whilst his buddies fight for their lives against an elite squad of enemy shock troops.

Seriously tho' it's not as exciting as it sounds.

Just as the good guys break thru' the enemy ranks Zuco thaws out and tells everyone that Myrna is dead.

Laugh now.

It seems that whilst Zuco's scientist were making the mask for the dwarf to wear they accidentally disintegrated her.

No seriously.

Flik just shrugs his shoulders and sighs before pointing out that under his planets laws Didi’s squeeze, the seductive Loya must take Myrna’s place as Flik’s betrothed.

She leaves Didi’s side and gets straight down to business with Flik, leaving poor Didi to travel back to with nothing to look forward to but a tearful wank and a Pot Noodle.

Which is a wee bit depressing really.

Duck off.

What can one possibly say in regard to the almost perfect example of high brow Brazilian comedy that is Os Trapalhões na Guerra Dos Planetas?

As an introduction to the many fascinating aspects of Brazilian culture the film is a Godsend, featuring as it does the countries three major obsessions; dancing badly, awful polyester jackets and fighting.

Which is three more than Belgium is famous for.

And what of the comedy greats that are/were The Bunglers? 

Well believe it or not these comedy cnuts starred in over 15,000 films in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming Brazil's biggest export (outside STD's and child labour that is) before being hunted down by the UN war crimes committee in 1997 and sentenced to death by firing squad  in late 1995.

So if you enjoyed their hi-jinks in this, their biggest grossing (and most expensive) movie and don't mind laughing at dead folk, there should be enough online to keep you going for a few months at least.

The Bunglers: They've got something to put in you.

The rest of you can sleep soundly knowing I watched it for you.

You lucky people.

*I assume this is the case from what I've heard, it's not available in Europe yet so I wouldn't know for sure, pirating is bad don't you know.








**Obviously I don't count the wonderful Nola Hayes in this blanket statement because as a 12 year old watching Benny Hill she was by far the least scary of the bunch and not at all cheap.

pleasence valley sunday.

Watched this t'other night as it was the closest thing to hand plus strangely enough I'd never seen it before or heard anything about it except for the fact that lead actress Trine Michelsen wore a lovely red frock in it.

So gotta be worth a punt then.

 
Specters (1987).

Dir: Marcello Avallone.

Cast: John R. Pepper, Trine Michelsen, Donald Pleasence, Massimo De Rossi, Matteo Gazzolo, Lavinia Grizi, Riccardo Parisio Perrotti, Laurentina Guidotti, Erna Schürer and Giovanni Tamberi.

 

“If you are very quiet you can hear the distant voices of those who are buried here.”

 

Welcome to downtown Rome where a crew of hard-hatted engineer types are digging a new subway tunnel due to the massive amounts of film crews wanting to film down there after the success of Demons or something.

 

Or was it The Church?

 

It definitely wasn't Deathline tho' cos that was shot in the UK.

 

Saying that, they might be Patrick Troughton fans.

 

But I digress. 

 

Anyway, literally just underneath where they're constructing this new tunnel, eminent Professor of old things Geoff Lasky (a visibly alcohol-oozing Pleasence wearing a dead mans cardigan) is keeping his students busy by getting them to measure various ruins whilst scoffing apples.

 

Seriously there isn't a single scene in the film that doesn't feature a cast member eating/throwing/caressing an apple, it's like the entire thing was sponsored by Granny Smith.

 

Anyway it appears that the whole subway situation has caused the Professors catacomb dig to collapse revealing a hidden tomb with the words “Whether invoked or not invoked, evil will come.” carved above the entrance.

 

Which is nice. 

 

Obviously totally ignoring the warning Lasky and his students start to investigate, soon uncovering what looks like a plaster model of a dolls face with a massive gaping mouth just big enough to pop your cock in.

 

Or a slice of apple.

 

"I love you....could it be magic?"

 

Suddenly and without warning we appear to have traveled thru time and space to a music video for Ultravox circa 1983 where a hunky (well as far as greased-haired Italians can be) young man is driving a lovely young lady (in the aforementioned frankly smashing red dress) along a deserted road.

 

Destination?

 

Love possibly.

 

Although that might be a lie and he may disappear after they park leaving her to fall into the clutches of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

  

Which in fact does actually happen.

 

Don't worry about any girl on fish tomfoolery occurring tho' as the whole thing is actually revealed to be a scene from a video being made for Alice's new pop song "Kiss My Fishlips!" and is quite a nice way of introducing not only our film's heroine Alice (Danish model and actress Michelsen whom you may recognise from Delirium) but her boyfriend - and one of Lasky's assistants Marcus (photographer, theatre director, filmmaker and father of the sheriff from Live And Let Die - Pepper), who's just arrived on set to take her back to his for a wee kiss and cuddle.

 

Unfortunately Alice is a bit pissed of that Marcus is spending so much time digging around in the dirt with Donald Pleasence so tells him in no uncertain terms to fuck off before shouting at her director and a fat sweaty man from the NME and finally storming off to her trailer.

 

Women eh?

 

The entire 80s summed up in one photograph.

 

 

  

 

Meanwhile back at the dig Professor Lasky and his team are busying themselves trying to figure out why anyone would bury sn evil, demonic entity beneath the mausoleum of the Roman Emperor Domitian.

 

"Was it cos they is Pagans?" asks the bespectacled Angelo (De Torrebruna, like anyone reading cares) helpfully whilst Barbara ('star' of You Disturb Me - Grizi) fiddles with her hair.

We never get to hear Lasky's reply tho' as we're suddenly following the oldest group of school kids in the world - led by Strip Nude For Your Killer's Erna Schürer and a depressingly nihilistic blind guide named Matteo (De Rossi wearing Peter Bark's discarded wig) - on a day trip around the catacombs.

 

 

"Hello it's the blind man, is anyone home?"

 

 

 

It wont come as any surprise to find that two of the students, Mike (Gazzolo from Umberto Lenzi's House of Lost Souls) and his ball-faced girlfriend Maria (latter day film producer Guidotti) are way more interested in sneaking off for a wee cuddle than traipsing around a damp muddy cave with some guy who looks like Jimmy Nail off Temu, so the pair decide to take a detour through an unmarked catacomb for some 80s style kissy kissy action involving double denim and bubble perms.

 

This however is soon interrupted firstly by a lone rat, followed by a huge gust of supernatural wind and finally a collapsing ceiling.

 

To be fair they'd be fucking quids in on You've Been Framed.

 

 

"Put it in me!"

 

Luckily no-one is hurt and the pair are promptly taken away in an ambulance and quickly forgotten.

I mean, come on, we're more interested in what Alice is sporting at the wrap party being hosted by the Italian version of Trevor Horn.

 

Or is that Timmy Mallet? 

 

Because let's be honest it takes a special type of gal to pull off a Thunderbirds cum SS inspired party outfit.

 

And Alice is most definitely that gal. 

 

But unfortunately at the moment she's a fairly grumpy one. 

 

Thunderbirds sind los!
 

You see she's deciding whether she should dump Marcus because even tho' they both love spaghetti and shagging she's upset that he spends so much time at the dig.

 

As horror subplots go this one is fairly unique I guess.

 

It doesn't last long tho' as no sooner has Marcus arrived than the pair kiss and make up and decide to go home for a wee bout of "the sex" but as the loved up pair approach their car a mysteriously shoe-less hooded tramp warns them that  

 

“It’s time to leave. To run away from this rotten place. Flee the city before evil, which is tired of hiding in the bowels of the earth, decides to wake. Leave before the sinister howls of the phantoms engulfed us all!”

Before asking them for the bus fare to Queensbury.

 

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, Trevor Horn is suddenly attacked by deadly corks bursting out of the wine bottles in the cellar before tripping over the carpet resulting in him falling head first thru a window and being garotted.

 

Ouch.

 

"Is it in yet?"

 

 

 

The next morning Marcus heads back to the dig nice and early in order to prepare himself for the first trip into the secret catacomb for over 2000 years, it's no surprise to find Lasky is fairly excited to find out what's down there but not excited (or stupid) enough to go himself obviously.

 

Which to be fair is actually a pretty sensible choice seeing as within minutes of descending Marcus has fallen into a huge hole and lost radio contact with the team.

 

This turn of events does give us time to gaze in wonder at the top of the range graphics on the Commodore Amiga that Angelo is desperately prodding to regain contact with his pal so swings and roundabouts really.

 

Luckily for those of a nervous disposition watching this whole situation is sorted within minutes and contact is soon reestablished just in time for Marcus to share footage of the massive paper mache (sorry stone) tomb emblazed with the word EVIL (in Latin so it must be legit) he's discovered in the middle of the room alongside a tiny bone and what looks like a four-pronged gardening trowel that may - or may not - come in useful for killing any monsters (or specters) later.

 

This kind of love is wrong, but you know it feels so right
Runnin' my hands across your cheeks
They're oh so smooth and white
So leave the light on baby, and unlock your backdoor
I'll be comin' through that way tonight to love you for sure.

Marcus quickly returns to the surface (it's a fairly short movie) and hands Angelo the bone (which he quickly takes to an anthropologist pal to be examined) and Lasky the trowel which he excitedly inspects before contacting the digs financier Len Gaspare (Murder Rock's Perrotti - literally what you get if you order Patrick Stewart from Grindr) who arranges to meet up with Lasky in order to criticize his lack of imagination whilst rubbing his semi-engorged member against his back and massaging the Professors shoulders just like your uncle used to when you were little.

 

Returning to his antique shop cum house cum sex dungeon (which bizarrely is connected to the tomb by an underground tunnel for absolutely no reason) Gaspare orders his leather-clad, thin lipped henchman Gino (Phantom of Death's Tamberi)  to steal the ancient trowel from Professor Lasky. 

As Gino squeaks off into the tunnels Alice is experiencing a stylish dream sequence cum homage to Nosferatu which seems at odds with the rest of the film seeing as it's fairly competently shot and quite effective.

 

 

MONSTA!

 

Whilst all this homo-erotic leatherboy/vampy dream action is going down it appears that poor Barbara has been left in charge of cataloging the stuff found in the tomb, meaning she's spending her Saturday night in a damp hole with only a bottle of wine and a copy of Photoplay for company.

 

Luckily this issue features a full page poster of Richard Gere which Barbara spends an uncomfortable amount of time caressing and chatting to.

 

No really. 

 

We don't have to put up with this frankly embarrassing fawning for long tho' as the spooky wind from earlier turns up just as Barbara decides to open the sarcophagus and a giant pair of hands burst out from the walls and crush her to death as Gino watches on in horror.

 

Or is that indifference?

 

I really don't know.

 

Or care. 

 

The unseen beast then chases Gino down the tunnel to Gaspare's basement where both men are killed (to death), Gino by bumming (probably) and Gaspare by having his head squashed against the wall. 

 

"It's CCCHHHRRRRIIISSSTTTMMMAAASSSS!"

 

Back at the tomb Professor Lasky and Marcus have arrived to find Barbara missing, the sarcophagus empty and me in total confusion as to trying to follow the plot.

 

Is it any wonder that Marcus wanders off in confusion? 

 

I mean to be honest I'd do the same if it wasn't so cold out.

 

And I was watching naked. 

 

Suddenly we're back with Alice who is interrupted recording another track for her new album when the microphone she's using turns into a massive green snake causing her to run out of the recording studio and jump into Marcus’s car, who as luck or bad plotting would have it has just turned up outside.

 

Turns out it's a really busy night, seeing as Angelo is also busy off seeing his Anthropology pal to see if he could find out anything from his tiny bone only to be killed by a dirty sink straight after calling Marcus, who himself was also busy with a tiny bone.

 

Snigger. 

 

He heads over to the anthropology lab leaving a half naked yet surprisingly relieved Alice to experience another horror film homage - this time it's A Nightmare on Elm Street as she's dragged kicking into the mattress, her smooth thighs glistening in the moonlight like a pair of shiny milk bottles whilst at the dig the evil best thing has a spooky staring contest with Professor Lasky causing him to have a heart attack or something.

As he lies prostrate in a recently arrived Marcus' arms (he's had a busy night) Lasky ominously whispers “I saw evil, I looked into his eyes.” before dying.

It's now left to Marcus to enter the catacombs, kill the demon and rescue the woman he loves before something terrible and up until now unexplained happens....

From Marcello Avallone, the man behind the spooky child-based chiller 
Un gioco per Eveline (1972) and the Mexican monster mash Maya (1989) comes this frankly bonkers and (oh so) leisurely paced demonic potboiler that despite it's shortcomings (lack of coherent plot, the aforementioned pacing, horrible trousers) is actual fairly enjoyable in a kinda slightly tipsy Sunday night way.

 

The acting is OK if nothing spectacular - which I guess is what happens when you cast the assistant director of The World According to Garp and Ghostbusters as your lead just because he speaks English - Pleasence phones in his performance whilst Trine Michelsen at least tries to do something other than frown whilst biting her lip whilst wearing THE greatest 80s wardrobe ever committed to celluloid plus it's pretty rare to see a (semi-intended) flirty gay scene in an Italian horror movie, especially when it's between an actor and human potato Donald Pleasence and the fey silver fox Riccardo Parisio Perrotti, which is at least something different.

 

It's just a pity then that fuck all of this matters as we've no idea who any of these people are and why we should invest in their story and just because Trine Michelsen has a smashing arse it doesn't mean you should base a 90 minute film around waiting for shots of it.

 

No caption required (except I've written one. Damn.)

 

It's not all bad tho' and as you're watching you can kinda tell which bits of the script were written by horror royalty Dardano (Cat O'Nine Tails, Demons, Bay of Blood, Zombie Flesh Eaters and The Beyond to name a few) Sacchetti and which bits by (journalist) Andrea Puragtori and jack of all trades Maurizio Tedesco which manages to keep you interested and while effects wise most of the budget seemed to go on a big industrial fan there are some nice practical make-up effects from genre stalwart Sergio Stivaletti including a totally underused full demon suit that only appears in silhouette toward the films climax.

 

Admittedly the face does have a wee bit of a comical underbite that screams 80s Doctor Who at you, which is why the director probably chose to concentrate on its hands instead.

 

Oh and Michelsen's bum obviously.

 

Chase me now.

 

 

The score by composer Lele Marchitelli and jazz pianist Danilo Rea is exactly what you'd expect from an Italian horror film of the period and if you're anything like me you'll already have it on your music player and overall the film is very pretty to look at but other than that it's kinda for Italian horror completists only.

Or those of you that have trouble sleeping. 

The cinematic equivalent of cuddling up on your sofa with an aging Labrador and slowly drifting off to sleep.