bloodsucka!

31 Days of Horror day the second and a good an excuse as ever to rewatch this old favourite....

Enjoy.

Blacula (1974).
Dir: William Crain.
Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas, Ted Harris, Rick Metzler, Gordon Pinsent, Lance Taylor Snr., Emily Yancy, Charles Macaulay and Thalmus Rasulala.

"You shall pay, black prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you that will doom you to a living hell. I curse you with my name. You shall be… Blacula!"

The year is 1780 and Count Dracula is busy entertaining studly African Prince Terry Mamuwalde (The King of Cartoons himself, Marshall) and his luscious lady-wife Luva (McGee from Shaft in Africa and Hammer among other top movies) at his castle in downtown Transylvania.

It seems that Dracula has invited these guests from the “dark continent” (and no that doesn't mean the West Midlands) to discuss Mamuwalde's plan to rid the world of slavery and see his people accepted as equals.

And Mamuwalde reckons that with Dracula’s help this dream can become a reality.

The evening appears to be going swimmingly until Dracula, slightly tipsy on Vodka and Red Bull decides to not only extol the merits of the slave trade but also admit that he's always fancied buying a "charming Negress" like Mrs. Mamuwalde just so he could touch her bum.

His wife, nation and sexiness insulted, Mamuwalde begins to smash the furniture before threatening to sodomize the Count with a chair leg and only a surprise appearance from Dracula's well trained army of ninja butlers stops this threat from becoming a reality.

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

Outnumbered (but not outfunked) the saucily sideburned servants succeed in overpowering the Prince, giving Dracula's newly risen Pikey brides time to grab Luva whilst dribbling thru' their ill fitting pound shop teeth.

As a final indignity Dracula bites poor Mamuwalde and places him in a coffin before cursing the prince with his own name.

"From now on" Dracula intones in a vaguely sinister fashion "You shall be known as…Blacula!"

Slamming the coffin shut, the Prince of Darkness has it (and Luva) bricked up in a convenient alcove where she shall slowly die from starvation as her husband scratches away at the coffin lid....

Cue funky sounds!

"I fang you!"

After titles that would make John Kricfalusi proud we return to present day (well 1972) Transylvania where camp as knickers Interior decorators Bobby and Billy (Harris and Metzler from some other movies possibly) have traveled from the good ol' US of A in order to collect all the fittings and furnishings from Dracula's castle as part of a government funded carboot sale.

It could happen.


Whilst their guide regales them with blood curdling tales of Count Dracula, Bobby is busying himself in the Counts back passage where he comes across the tomb containing Mamuwalde’s coffin.

Never one to knock back a nice bit of wood Bobby begs the guide to let him have it to which the helpful Romanian gladly obliges.

Oh yes, he gives him the coffin too.

Back home in Los Angeles, our preening pals are busy unpacking their large containers when Billy, always the joker, has the oh-so-wacky idea of swapping the coffin they purchased for the bed in their guest bedroom.

A scarily early warning about AIDS or just a convenient way to wake the Count?

YOU decide.

Using all his strength  Bobby manages to pry open the lock on the coffin but Billy (being clumsy as fuck...must be the way he flaps his arms when he speaks) slashes his hand on the coffins knob.

Screaming and shouting about his cut whilst crying on his pal's shoulder, the flamboyant fellows fail to notice the coffin beginning to open.

From the inside.

They've got something to put in you.

Yup, Blacula is back and on the loose in LA, rising from his coffin he makes easy pickings of our pillow puffing pals before, um, going back to sleep.

Oh well.

It's the next day and we're at a funky funeral home where a 'service' for Bobby is about to be held but hark, who's the mystery man in black skulking in the background?

That'll be Blacula then, spookily staring at the corpse whilst wriggling his fingers, his vampire powers slowly bringing Bobby back to life as a servant of the undead.

Creepy.

Luckily for us these spooky shenanigans are interrupted by the arrival of jolly undertaker Mr. Swenson (Sanford and Son's Taylor) and a small group of mourners consisting of the funktastically 'tashed Doctor Gordon Thomas (Blaxploitation stalwart Rasulala), his girlfriend Michelle (Ghost Dad's Nicholas) and her purple clad, hooded sister Tina (McGee again...can you see where this is going?).

As Gordon, Michelle and Tina chat uncomfortably over the big blue stiff, Tina removes her hood to reveal her stunning visage leaving Blacula speechless at the resemblance to his dead wife.

Pre-walled up in a castle that is.

Laugh now!

Intrigued by the apparent bite marks on Bobby's neck, gorgeous Gordon whips out his scientific credentials and begins to question of cuddly undertaker pal who informs him that as well as the human mouth sized bite, Bobby’s veins were also empty of blood.

Gordon, his brow furrowed in a look usually kept for when he's pleasuring the ladies, briskly turns and heads for his lab  prompting Swenson to exclaim “That is the rudest nigger I ever met!” 

Which gives it the edge over Hollyoaks in the realism stakes I guess.

Meanwhile Tina, tired from having to be so sexy all day, decides that rather than go visit poor Bobby’s snot faced gurgling mother’s place with Michelle she'd much prefer to go home and relax with a nice bath, some romantic girl-porn and various fresh vegetables.

As she clip clops along the sidewalk in an outfit that would shame Liberace, Tina soon begins to sense that she is not quite alone.

Quickening her pace, she runs around the corner and comes face to face with Blacula himself who decides to break the ice by calling her "Luva".

As any sane person would do in that situation, Tina turns tail and hoofs it down the street dropping her purse in the process.

Not too surprisingly our velvet clad vamp finds it.

Just before he's hit by a cab which appears to be driven by Martin Lawrence in full Big Momma's House mode.

After much slagging and pushing from the driver, Blacula obviously bored with getting called 'Boy!' whilst getting man-handled by a crossdressing former Will Smith co-star finally bites the cabbie to death.

"Yo crazy biatch! etc".

Worn out by this sudden burst of ultra-violence Blacula heads home to bed.

Well daylight come and we’re off to the local police station where Gordon is busy chatting with Sam the morgue man as regards to the dead cabbie found the following night, looking over the body Gordon is shocked to find two puncture marks on the neck.

Just like on that gay bloke.

Could this be a clue?

Well crusty police lieutenant Jack Peters reckons it’s the Black Panthers (or an actual black panther, I'm not sure) but Gordon disagrees reckoning it's more likely to be bin men or gypsies.

Or maybe rats.

And with that, Gordon, planning on spending the day organizing Michelle’s birthday, bids his farewells and struts off into the city.

Dig?

Beware Blacula's cum face.

The birthday bash beckons down at Paul Barron's club, where top pop trio The Hues Corporation are entertaining the crowds as Gordon, Michelle and Tina enjoy some ice cold Colt 45 and flapjacks.

Probably.

Anyway striding manfully thu' the front door like some negative Jon Pertwee comes Blacula who uses Tina's purse as an excuse to join the party alongside comedy jivester Skillet who's just there for the champagne.

Everything is going swimmingly till local photographer and full time hot pants model Nancy (teevee stalwart Yancy) takes a couple of photo's of the group causing Blacula to freak out at the sudden flash.

Making his excuses he leaves, only to hide behind Nancy's bins waiting for a moment to strike.

You see, our bloodsucking brother doesn't show up on photographs.

When and how he learned this is never explained probably because it would get in the way of the killings.

"I need to crack this, Dag, cos if not, Won Ton will be all over me like knockers in a wind tunnel".

Nancy stumbles into the street and straight into the arms of erstwhile Sergeant John Barnes, who just happens to be heading to the party with a load of autopsy photo's for Gordon (don't ask) but as he prepares to call for help she sprouts fangs and bites him.

Deciding that all these bitings must be related, Gordon gets Michelle a stack of books on ghouls and vampires from the library whilst he attempts to get a permit to exhume Billy’s (remember him?) body.

Unfortunately the DA knocks his request back, meaning our hairy hero has no choice but to turn grave-robber, obviously Michelle refuses to help but Gordon manages to persuade her with lots and lots of sweet kisses and a couple of nipple pinches.

He the man as the young folk say.

As she heads home to change into some old clothes, Gordon takes the time to polish himself off whilst looking over some of the books from the library.

Fair enough.

Blood in mah mooth!

Whilst all this seventies style digging is going down, Blacula shows up at Tina’s door desperate to see her and Tina, being a girl in a horror movie, invites him in.

Cue a long and convoluted chat to fill in the backstory for those to busy (or thick) to remember that basically goes from  "Ooooh we have  a connection" to "I'm an undead African Prince who is now a vampire" via "you're my  wife reincarnated (now)".

Frighteningly this line of chat actually works and it's not long before Tina and Blacula are at it on the sofa like crazy things.

"Put it in me!"

Things are hotting up at the graveyard to, for no sooner has Gordon opened Billy's coffin than the ghoulish gay comes flying out like a slightly camp jack in the box.

Albeit one with huge plastic fangs and a face plastered in green emulsion.

Luckily Gordon has come prepared and quickly pulls out his trusty stake and thrusts it into Billy before beating him off with a shovel.

Noticing that Michelle has pissed herself with fear he quickly explains that Billy was a vampire so it's not really murder.

Hmmm, must remember to try that one next time I'm in court.

Quick as a very quick thing Michelle realizes that this means Bobby must also be a vampire.

A vampire on the loose somewhere in the city!

Gordon frantically phones Peters to explain the situation before remembering that Martin Lawrence is still in the morgue.

Hanging up on Peters he rings Sam to warn him not to take the body out of the freezer but Sam is busy having a big poo and when he returns he too is murdered.

Arse. 

Vonetta McGee: your dad did. Twice.

Realizing that all this started with the arrival of all that antique shite from Transylvania, Gordon begins to suspect that the legends of Count Dracula must be true.

But no-one can recall seeing a flamboyant white guy prowling the streets.

Eventually (after a few more murders and a good many snogs from Blacula) he realizes the truth about Mamuwalde, meaning it's a race against time to save the city and ultimately his sisters soul (both eternal and arse) from our lovelorn bloodsucker.

Released at the height of the seventies blaxploitation boom, William Crain's  Blacula is not only the most fondly remembered of the the black horror (or Blorror) cycle but quite possibly the best too.

Most of the movies success tho' is down to it's fantastic cast and none more so than actor William Marshall, playing he tragic yet terrifying Prince Mamuwalde with a conviction rarely seen in movies of this ilk.

With his booming baritone voice and commanding presence, Marshall totally (and believably) instills the character of Blacula with a quiet humanity that works well to juxtapose the more frightening aspects of what could have been, in a lesser actors hands a one note and quite possibly laughable villain.

Whilst the director failed to reach the same dizzy heights with the Bernie Casey starrer Dr. Black and Mister Hyde before returning to teevee, Blacula returned to face off against the one and only Pam Grier in the Scream Blacula Scream.

Worth ninety minutes of anyone’s time, if only to see where Richard Ayoade got the idea for Dean Learner from.

Highly recommended.

Twice.

junior kickstart.

It's 1st October which means another excruciatingly bad 31 Days of Horror selection from me in a sad attempt to get any new (or just any) readers....

To be fair tho' this is actually a bloody good movie and probably as entertaining as the blog will get in the next 4 weeks.

Enjoy.

 

Psychomania (AKA The Death Wheelers -1973).

Dir: Don Sharp.

Cast: George Sanders, Beryl Reid, Nicky Henson, Mary Larkin, Roy Holder, Robert Hardy, Ann Michelle, Denis Gilmore, Miles Greenwood, Peter Whitting, Rocky Taylor, Patrick Holt, Alan Bennion, John Levene, Roy Evans, Bill Pertwee, Denis Carey, June Brown, Martin Boddey and Heather (Inseminoid) Wright as The Girl with Parcels.

 

"You can only die once, after that nothing and nobody can harm you!"
 

 

 

Floppy fringed, leather clad, posh-boy leader of the home counties hardest biker gang The Living Dead, Tom Latham (film and TV stalwart Henson) is bored with his carefree life of chugging around on a motorbike, causing havoc at the local shopping arcade and occasionally scaring cows whilst racing along the A344 outside Walton-on-Thames, Surrey so decides, with the - begrudging - help of his mum (the legendary Reid) and her suavely sinister (or should that be sinisterly suave?) butler, Shadwell (cinema stalwart and chicken chef Sanders) to become immortal. 

Luckily Tom’s dad was a wizard or something and had already discovered this secret but died (for good) whilst attempting it due to being allergic to frogs, which was unfortunate as a frog is essential to the ritual.

But now it's Tom's turn so armed with a magical frog-shaped amulet he enters the mysterious room of death to confront the terrifying full-length mirror of fear.

No, really.

Turns out that the secret is that you really, really, REALLY have to want to come back from the dead for it to work.

Oh yes and not be scared of frogs obviously.

Tom being incredibly macho completes the ritual with ease and the next day rides his bike into the oncoming traffic to prove it, instantly killing him.

To death.

As requested Tom is buried - sitting atop his bike - in the middle of a stone circle up the road from his house and from where, later that eve, he bursts forth and rides off into the night to terrorize a group of darts players at a nearby pub before kissing - then killing - a lady.

What a rotter.

 

Sandwich in mah mooth!

 

As you can imagine the rest of his gang are pretty excited to see him alive and well and - after a wee bit of supernatural chat - all agree to kill themselves in order to live forever, free from pain, fashion and consequences.

A wee bit like Brexiteers if I'm honest.

One by one, the Living Dead finally get to live up to their gang name as, in a series of cunning stunts that would make Michael Crawford green with envy, Tom's pals start jumping from tower blocks (much to Mary, Mungo and Midge's disgust), throwing themselves out of planes without parachutes, driving off bridges and drowning themselves in ponds weighed down with comedy chains and wearing tiny pants.

Which is all well and good but makes you realize just how bloody lucky they all are to come back in one piece and not hideously burned or mangled. 

Knowing my luck I'd rise from the dead with my feet on backwards or something.

 

"French polishers? You may have just saved my life!"

Not everyone is happy with the situation tho', Tom's mum is worried about the satanic repercussions of having an undead son and his fairly forgettable - and frightfully posh - girlfriend Abby (Ex Darling Bud and future romantic author Larkin) is having second thoughts about killing herself as she reckons it may ruin her chances of becoming a nursery nurse.

So with this in mind she contacts the gruff but fair Chief Inspector Hesseltine (Hardy, nuff said) who has been busy trying to catch the corpsey crims.

 

"Boiled onions!"

 

Luckily for Tom tho', his saucy second-in-command, Jane (horror stalwart and sister of Vicki, Michelle), is well up for some undead fun - whether it be by hanging herself from a tree to scare Abby, running over a baby in the local Safeway or murdering Doctor Who’s Sgt Benton in a police station lobby, Michelle might not steal the film but she at least gives it a good goosing when no-one is looking.

But as all this motorbike-based mayhem continues Tom's mum is starting to get a wee bit worried about what her local neighbourhood seance club might think about his satanic shenanigans as the police - alongside Abby formulate a trap to catch terrible Tom....

 

 

 

 

 

From Don Sharp, the man behind the Hammer non-Dracula vampire flick The Kiss of the Vampire (which I can be ever thankful to for introducing a teen me to the wonderfully exotic - as in Scottish - Isobel Black) as well as the first two Christopher Lee Fu Manchu movies (as well as tonnes of other stuff that I can't be arsed listing, I mean come on it's not a shopping list), comes Britain's answer to Easy Rider only this time with added satanism, massive comedy helmets, copious amounts of club sandwiches and the biggest cast of 70s TeeVee celebs this side of a Christmas Woolworths ad.

I mean where else would you find Roy (Sorry!) Holder, Robert (All Creatures Great and Small) Hardy, Ann (Come Back Mrs. Noah) Michelle, Denis (Crossroads) Gilmore, Patrick (Emmerdale) Holt, Alan (Doctor Who's Ice Warrior supreme) Bennion, Roy (Eastenders) Evans, Bill (Dad's Army) Pertwee, Denis (I Claudius) Carey alongside Dot Cotton herself,  June Brown and the aforementioned John Levene?

 

 

Isobel Black - Scotch Miss.

 

Add to that a groovy folk song by based Brummie singer-songwriter and poet Harvey Andrews (who was cruelly cut from the film for having a face like a potato, his song mimed to by Martin Boddey), stunts from the legendary Rocky Taylor and a score by the fantastic John Cameron (who, in case you didn't know arranged and recorded the instrumental version of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" that for centuries was used as the theme music for the BBC TV show, Top of the Pops) and you - should - have a recipe for success.

 

It's a pity then that the whole thing comes across more Victoria Wood than Pete Walker with it's frightfully posh - as opposed to just frightening - biker gang (who all appear to be just the wrong side of 25) who never seem to go any further than the local shops to cause trouble and with a bad boy lead who lives at home with his mum in a mansion and phones her if he's gonna be late home.

The gangs air of menace isn't helped by their names either - there's Gash, Hinkey, Chopped Meat (?), Bertram and bad girl Jane Pettibone, I mean seriously in a street fight between them and the Jets from West Side Story I know who my money would be on.

Sod that I reckon The Tweenies could probably take them given a few ales.

Plus I imagine Fizz would look really hot in skin-tight red bikers leathers.

But I digress.

Five fingers, never touched the sides.

 

 

 

 

 

It's not all bad tho' and to be fair when he's allowed Sharp pulls off some pretty cool scenes including a fantastic  360 degree pan around a morgue which begins with Abby pretending to be dead and surrounded by Police as Chief Inspector Hesseltine outlines his plan to capture Tom and Abby gone and the previously empty morgue bays filled with the bodies of the now dead officers. 

Add to that the gangs suicide scenes have an air of macabre glee about them, it's just a pity that the film doesn't know if it wants to be seriously scary or darkly comedic so ends up being neither.

Even the implications of the gangs suicide/resurrection pact is never fully explored and as mentioned earlier, none of them return looking anything other than perfect, imagine them coming back battered, burnt and broken then realising this is how it'd be from then on in, as it stands in the movie a group of bored, posho types pretend play working class rebels by scaring postmen, come back from the dead as immortals and still just scare postmen.

 

Hel-Met.

 

 

 

Saying that tho' it's actually (surprisingly?) a pretty entertaining watch if you're in the right frame of mind, which obviously George Sanders wasn't when he first viewed it in a small cinema whilst on holiday in Madrid seeing as after it'd finished he went straight back to his hotel and killed himself, leaving a note pronouncing "God I'm bored".

Shit this has ended on a wee bit of a downer hasn't it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

davie says: warbeck, hide yourself.

Sad to hear that John Steiner has died, an undisputed cult hero who worked with everyone from Lucio Fulci, to Antonio Margheriti.

 

 
Been prepping the whole 31 Days of Horror thang but couldn't let his passing go without at least a quick rewatch of one of his best movies.

This is.

L’Ultimo cacciatore (AKA The Last Hunter, Hunter of the Apocalypse. 1980).
Dir. Antonio Margheriti
Cast: David Warbeck, Tisa Farrow, Tony King, Sir Bobby of Rhodes, John Steiner, some Chinamen and Margit Evelyn Newton.

The time: 1973, the place: a wee drinking club somewhere in downtown Saigon where the suave and sweaty Colonel Morris Minor (horror god and almost Bond, the late great Dame David Warbeck) has decided to spend his day off.

Enjoying warm booze and watching a bored Vietnamese whore trying to dance in an erotic manner (and failing miserably, poor cow) our heroes lazy day is rudely interrupted by his young male 'friend' Steve's sudden emotional breakdown.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

Steve, it seems, is rapidly approaching the tearful wank based Pot Noodle stage due in part to his missis leaving him but mainly because the scarily skinny prostitute lying across his bare chest is obsessed with stroking his hairy man breasts.

We've all been there.

After resigning himself to the fact that it's gonna be his job to clean up all the sweat, egg, semen and blood stains later whilst poor Steve dribbles in a ditch, you can imagine Morris' surprise when his forlorn pal suddenly sobers up and shoots some random GI in the face before offing himself.

And if that wasn't enough to ruin our heroes Saturday night somebody then decides to firebomb the club.

War it seems, is indeed hell.

Luckily for us (and for the film in general) Morris quickly legs it before the whole place goes up in cheap gin and piss soaked flames, watching in horror (or with mild apathy, I couldn't really tell) as everyone else is burnt to death.

Warbeck: You would
(tho' he'd probably not give you a choice).

There's no time for tears tho' because the top brass are sending Morris behind enemy lines.

As opposed to forcing him into the enemies mouth.

And his mission?

Jump out of what looks like the BBC outside broadcast helicopter into a small duck pond and meet up with the hard as nails 'Bastard Squad'.

This crack commando team, led by the badass Sgt. George Washington (king, from Cannibal Apocalypse and The Atlantis Interceptors) and his pal Carlos Santana (the legendary Rhodes) have orders to quietly traipse thru' the directors garden in order to 'silence' (they may mean blow up) a radio tower broadcasting evil propaganda messages telling the American soldiers to go home.

And it seems that they need Morris to join them as he once worked for Radio 2 as a continuity announcer or something.

So far so Heart of Darkness.

Throwing himself out of the plane and narrowly avoiding a rubber snake (or was that a real snake and a rubber Warbeck?) upon landing, Morris manages to find Washington and company without a hitch only to discover that they're dragging top lady reporter Jane Foster (Farrow, the slightly sleazier - not to say considerably more ginger sister of Mia) around with them for no other reason than that she must have been shooting another film nearby at the same time.

Which is fair enough I guess but does make you keep wondering when the zombies are going to attack.

Farrow: harsh.

Taking time to go the scenic route (and fill out the movie's length) our motley crew come across a small village populated by tiny, machine gun wielding Vietnamese woman with a nice line in exploding babies to shoot at.

Unfortunately Washington is wounded in the ensuing firefight meaning our heroes have to retreat into the jungle or face getting beaten by girls.

Cue twenty odd minutes of rotting corpses falling from trees, Tisa Farrow's sweaty nipples becoming more and more visible thru' her vest top and various members of the team getting pinned to trees by big spiky booby traps.

But alas still no zombies.

Or even cannibals for that matter.

But this lack of flesh eater action is the least of Warbeck's worries, seeing as the base camp (well base cave really) he has to report to on the final leg of his mission seems to be run by the scary bloke from Sparks (skinny legged Argento regular Steiner) and that all the soldiers under his command are off their tits on drugs.

To show how stoned they actually are  - and how the horrors of war can warp a man -  the entire camp start rubbing themselves up and wolf whistling when Tisa Farrow turns up.

I'd just like to point out that I'm in no way saying she's not attractive but she's standing next to a wet David Warbeck clad only in a vest and too tight combats.

And that's enough to turn anyones head.

Luckily for Tisa, Major Sparks - despite being camp as pants and having little thin rubber legs - is actually a rather nice man and at the first sign of any Donald Trump style behavior from his troops send those responsible pole vaulting behind enemy lines to fetch him a coconut or two.

"Look! a telescope with a mouse in it!"

But this jolly japery can't last forever and it's not too long before the oft-mentioned 'Charlie' (a character we never learn the true identity of) attack the cave system, kidnap Tisa and machine gun everyone inside.

Except for Morris and his buddies obviously.

Escaping to the local boating pond, Carlos is cruelly killed whilst stealing a junk (as opposed to firing it everywhere) whilst Washington clumsily trips over a corpse and snaps his leg in half, giving him and Morris a wee chance to discuss the futility of war and stuff.

After a series of meaningful glances Morris jumps overboard (either to continue his mission or because he can't stand anymore of the incredibly stilted and frighteningly clichéd dialogue), leaving Washington at the mercy of the Viet Cong machine gun nests serendipitously hidden around the next bend.

Which is a bit of a bastardy thing to do if you think about it.

"Aya! Mah BCG!"

With a look of grim determination (or constipation, it's hard to tell) Morris continues further into the jungle, alone and armed with only a kids spud gun and a sweat mottled pair of man breasts, determined to complete his mission before heading home for tea and crumpets.

Nice as this idea is it soon all goes tits up when he's captured by the ever present Charlie and dumped shoe-less in a rat infested water cage with only a man with a melted cheese face for company.

Can anyone help our hero?

Well Tisa's sitting sipping rice tea in a holiday chalet overlooking the prison (and the rent) so hopefully she'll get up off her fat arse and finally add something to the plot....

But will she be able to waddle down to rescue Morris before the rats begin to nibble on his man bits?

"Hey Tisa, is that your
brother in law shagging your niece?"

Genre busting genius Antonio (Bed of a Thousand Pleasures, Cannibal Apocalypse, Yor, the Hunter from the Future and Code Name: Wild Geese amongst others) Margheriti's The Last Hunter has everything Apocalypse Now! should have had (including a considerably shorter running time) and much more.

Except zombies unfortunately but you can't have everything.

It's pedigree is second to none featuring as it does star turns from Fulci faves David Warbeck and Tisa Farrow aided and abetted by a top cast of Italian icons including Bobby (Demoni) Rhodes, John (Tenebrae and the reason we are here) Steiner and Margit Evelyn (Zombie Creeping Flesh) Newton.

Behind the scenes it has cult composer Franco (everything from Black Demons to music featured on the Death Proof and Ren and Stimpy show soundtracks) Micalizzi's sexy synth sounds and craftily crude special effects from the Philipino Savini himself Apollonio Abadesa.

"Fuck me! a wasp!"

And although Margheriti's entire career seems to have consisted of making cheap knock offs of bigger, more famous movies the director didn't seem to mind, giving his all and making the most of the motley assortment of the clichéd characters and situations in evidence.

From the hard bitten soldiers to the snatches of inappropriate nudity via scenes of extreme violence, Margheriti also manages to fill the movie with just enough cod "war is hell" speeches to almost convince you that you're actually watching something worthwhile and meaningful as opposed to just sitting eagerly awaiting the next over the top death scene or the chance of a quick look at Tisa Farrow's (admittedly) rather shapely breasts.

And if that doesn't get you salivating then I don't know what will.

Quite possibly THE greatest Vietnam based war movie starring David Warbeck ever made.

And you can't get higher praise than that.

doctor on call.

 

 

 

OK....Which one of you is it?

meat is murder.

Not only is it almost the end of the summer holidays it's the lovely Sabrina Siani's birthday so to celebrate this we've trimmed our garden back seeing as it was getting very overgrown.

Mondo Cannibale (AKA Cannibals, Barbarian Goddess and White Cannibal Queen among others. 1980)
Dir: Jess Franco.
Cast: Al Cliver, Sabrina Siani, Lina Romay, Anouchka, Robert Foster, Shirley Knight, Pamela Stanford and Olivier Mathot.

Where the natives are pleased to MEAT you!

Famous researcher of 'things' Dr. Jeremy Taylor (Euro-god Cliver, unfortunately for him being out-acted by his trademark beard), his scrummy wife Elisabeth (Stanford sans son) and his young, pug faced daughter Lana (Anouchka - that wee girl from Zombie Lake) are traveling along a treacherous stretch of the Amazon River (played in this instance by the coast of Spain) said to be inhabited by a tribe of bloodthirsty cannibals (fantastically essayed by a squad of tubby, bequiffed Frenchmen in kiddies facepaint).

No sooner has the salty boat captain finished spinning a lurid tale about these savages when a group of them sneak aboard his vessel and start slaughtering the crew before turning their lustful gaze toward Taylor's missis.

After a valium-tastic slo-mo feeding frenzy in which Cliver gazes into the distance manfully as the brutish savages eat his wife we suddenly find ourselves on the banks of a tiny garden fish pond where Taylor's daughter is lying unconscious.

But still with a pug face obviously.

(multicoloured) shite in her mooth.

Scooping her into his arms like a rickety old dumper truck the toothless tribal chief (who looks uncannily like Max Wall) takes the young girl home and declares her a sacred white goddess before adopting her into the tribe.

Which is pretty lucky considering the alternative.

Taylor on the other hand is less fortunate seeing as he's quickly captured, has one of his arms chopped off and eaten in front of him and finally being trussed up like a sexy yet still attractively skinny pig.

Before the tribe can get to work on the rest of him tho' he manages to escape into the undergrowth and is soon rescued by a couple of blokes in obscenely tight jeans driving a jeep.

Caught wanking by your mum....again!

Ending up in a New York hospital with amnesia (and no shirts that sits right), he is nursed back to health by the buxom, bouncy lipped Ana (Romay billed here as Candy Coster which going by the amount of shite she's appeared in under her own name shows how truly awful this film is) a foxy doc who has spent the last 10 years sitting at his bedside trimming his beard occasionally.

Feeling much better (but unfortunately unable to return all the pairs of gloves that well-wishers have sent him), Taylor heads off to the world famous Shelton Foundation, funders of the original expedition in the hope of securing backing for a second trip into the jungle to find his daughter.

Unluckily for our hero it turns out that the foundations head Barbara (Knight) and her camp British boyfriend Charles (Mathot, bless you) are more interested in taking the piss out of Taylor, accusing him of hiding his arm behind his back (hmmm...they have a point) and wearing a stick on beard.

Taylor leaving the office with a loud 'fuck you' decides to go to the Amazon anyway and with Ana in tow, goes about securing the services of a guide, however seeing as they only have about 60 pence to their name this proves a wee bit difficult.

Life is cheap down south but not that cheap.

But just as Taylor is about to give up and go home he runs into Charles and Barbara, who've come to South America with a group of posh pals in the hope of finding the one armed doc, you see they want to apologize for all their nastiness and have decided to bankroll his trip, provided their group of friends get to join in the fun.

Don't worry hen....he's 'armless.

A grimly serious Taylor warns them that it'll be a dangerous journey into uncharted cannibal country, waving his stump around as proof but the drunken toffs just giggle and start packing their swimming trunks, wide brimmed hats and sunblock.

Heading out into the jungle (well, the local park) the party come across the folk (bits of them anyway) that rescued Taylor in the movies opening.

Now you or I may see this as a sign to turn back, but not Taylor and co. who continue further into the unknown, stopping only to adjust their lip gloss.

It's not too long tho' (thank Christ) before the members of the expedition are being picked off and butchered one by one in particularly gruesome ways (well in slow motion whilst members of the crew throw offal around) by the bloodthirsty savages till only Taylor Ana and some disposable young guy (whose name escapes me) are left.
Captured and bound they're taken before the tribes whitey-hating leader Jeff Yakaké (Foster) and his harsh faced yet surprisingly pale skinned wife (Siani, 'star' of Fulci's Conquest and your Granddads bed).

Could this be Taylor's missing daughter?

"I wanted to be a tiger!"

Whilst Ana is dragged off by the cannibals (sounds painful) Taylor has the idea of asking his daughter to untie him and his mate so that they can escape.

Her expression is one of either faint recollection or boredom but either way she sneaks out of her hut that night to free her dad who promptly slings her over his shoulder and legs it into the trees speedily pursued by his irate son in law and his pals.

Watch out watch out....Ross Thomson's about.

Will Taylor, his pal and his daughter manage to escape from this tropical hell or will they be forced to partake in a post pub style fisticuffs match in a small stream?

Will Taylor shed even one solitary tear over Ana's death?

And will Siani ever change her slightly bemused expression?

Also known by an obscene amount of alternate titles ranging from names like Barbarian Goddess to Mondo Cannibale (see how many more you can find dear reader there may be a prize!), Jess Franco's second foray into the world of the cannibal (his first was the sleaze-tastic 1973 'epic' Bare Breasted Countess) came about when producer Marius Lesoeur approached the sleaze guru with regards to him producing his own spin on the by now lucrative flesh eating film fad.

Casting cult idol and not to mention dirt cheap Cliver (with whom Franco would go on to make the classic 1980 film The Devil Hunter with) and his own missis should have meant that Franco had more cash left to put towards some breath taking special effects and lush locations but unfortunately (due in part to Lesoeur only managing to raise a budget of £75.81) this wasn't to be.

The West Bromwich Olympic
hopefuls - led by Tom Savini -  go thru' their paces.

The usually top drawer Cliver sleepwalks thru' the movie, his 'severed' arm obviously hidden down his shirt as he struggles to hide his embarrassment as he is poked and prodded by the most bizarre ethnic mix of cannibals ever committed to celluloid. Chubby, pasty faced Frenchmen, slick haired Latinos and even a couple of Japanese folk fill out the tribes numbers, forced to jump about in tiny leather thongs and blackface.

But not even that can prepare you for the sight of a wooden topped Sabrina Siani*, her face smeared in blue gloss paint, her nipples (only just) covered by her blonde mane and her (albeit) peachy arse exposed for all the world to see uncomfortably jerking from scene to scene like an anorexic Bambi on amphetamines.

Yes it really is a performance to remember.

Arse.

The films one saving grace tho' is the always reliable Lina Romay in a role that actually allows her to act for a change as opposed to standing around with her kit off showing her frighteningly furry 70s bush to the world.

Which is one reason to see it I guess.

Nothing like damning with faint praise is there?
















































*Want to know more? then click here for my exclusive 'interview' with her.

Well I say interview.

welcome to the pleasure dome.

In tribute to Dame Olivia Newton-John, a few choice pages from probably THE greatest Marvel comic adaptation ever....Xanadu.