All things Cult Cinema

[jenkins]

my first Andy Milligan was Vapors, from the VS Sexploitation Signature Series. missing out on his Fleshpot on 42nd Street is a particular regret of mine, especially now that I've seen Vapors. so it's from 1965, it's his first movie (~30min short), it's set in a bath house, men seeking men, it's b&w and there isn't a single dick shown. sex movies are still just beginning, which I knew from Vibrations. pre-hardcore it's super soft core. no sex here: this movie is tender, it's dimensional, it's full of character, and it's a million fucking miles from Hollywood movies in this time period, much closer to something like Shadows. it's hella authentic seeming even if it's obviously a movie. everyone is acting natural

[jenkins]

the VS stans went apeshit about Action USA

then it's so funny because it was a limited release and this happened



then this joke happened



and now the internet has taken flight

[wilder]

I totally regretted not taking your advice when it was available and will definitely be picking that up.

[wilder]

March 16, 2021

The Dungeon of Andy Milligan on limited edition blu-ray from Severin



He's been described as "The Fassbinder of 42nd Street" (Artforum), "a celebration of hate" (Bleeding Skull) and "an unmatched voice from the underbelly of low-budget cinema" (Rue Morgue). More than a quarter century after his death, he remains perhaps the most divisive name in genre history. Severin Films now presents the cranium-cleaving collection devoted to writer/actor/director Andy Milligan – "a gay sadist who pioneered New York's avant-garde theater world and made astonishingly unique exploitation movies" (Diabolique Magazine) – on 8 Blu-rays featuring 14 surviving films from his NYC and London years, 10+ hours of trailers, outtakes, interviews & audio commentaries, a bonus CD and an all-new 128-page book by Stephen Thrower that explores the profane madness behind it all. From his provocative underground work through his international scuzz-horror classics, experience the venomous legacy of the filmmaker Time Magazine calls "depraved, degenerate, desperate, damned" like never before.

Details here. Available from Severin's online store.

March 29, 2021

Christian Gion's Le jardin des supplices aka The Garden of Torment (1976) on blu-ray from Nucleus Films (UK). Region free.



In rebellious and unstable 1920s China, Antoine, a naive young French doctor finds himself increasingly involved with a depraved group of pleasure-seeking Colonial settlers who use the misery and desperation of the local population for their own entertainment. As Antoine is drawn further and further into the sadistic and perverted world of the beautiful but evil Clara and her powerful and corrupt father (Tony Taffin, Maitresse), has to decide what matters most to him – his desire to reduce the suffering around him or his desire for the cold and seductive mistress of the Garden of Torment.

Adapted from Octave Mirbeau's notorious fin de siècle decadent classic Torture Garden, this rarely-seen study of Sadean pleasures and wanton cruelty emerged at the height of the French erotic cinema revolution and was originally banned in the UK thanks to its hedonistic collision of sensuality – courtesy of the stunning Jacqueline Kerry (in her only film appearance) and future novelist and pop singer Ysabelle Lacamp (Emmanuelle 2) – and grotesque horror. As outrageous, stylish, politically astute and constantly unsettling now as it was on original release, The Garden of Torment is the great lost film of 1970s Euro erotica, now on Blu-ray, restored and uncut for the first time with brand new bonus features.

NSFW

March 10, 2021

Nouchka van Brakel's Een vrouw als Eva aka A Woman Like Eve (1979) on blu-ray from Cult Epics



Acclaimed actresses Monique van de Ven (Turkish Delight) and Maria Schneider (Last Tango in Paris) star alongside with Peter Faber (Soldier of Orange) in the groundbreaking film A Woman Like Eve (1979), focused on a married woman's affair with another woman. Directed by pioneering filmmaker Nouchka van Brakel, the acclaimed A Woman Like Eve was a major hit at LGBT film festivals and was the Dutch entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.

February 23, 2021

Umberto Lenzi’s The Hitcher in the Dark (1989) on blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative



Mark, a disturbed young man, harbors sexual desires for his deceased mother. Driving around the back roads of Va. Beach, Mark seeks out lone females to carry out his twisted sexual fantasies. Enter Daniela, who bares a striking resemblance to mom, who happens to make the mistake of accepting a ride from Mark.



February 23, 2021

Forgotten Gialli Vol. 3 on blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome

Autopsy

A wave of sudden, violent suicides have gripped Rome and are being blamed on sun spots. Simona, a young pathologist with an unhealthy obsession with death, has become increasingly interested in this strange phenomenon. But with the discovery of the body of a young woman, an apparent victim of a self inflicted gunshot, Simona finds herself thrust into a terrifying mystery and conspiracy to cloak actual murders as suicides. And the nearer she comes to unraveling the truth, the more in danger she is to entering the sights of a deranged killer, who might be a lot closer to home than she realizes.

An expertly directed and at times staggeringly brutal thriller from Armando Crispino (The Dead Are Alive), AUTOPSY (which was made under the title 'Sun Spots' and released internationally as 'The Victim') stars Mimsy Farmer (Four Flies on Grey Velvet), Barry Primus (New York, New York), and Ray Lovelock (Let Sleeping Corpses Lie). Featuring stunning photography from veteran Italian DP Carlo Carlini (The Bloodstained Butterfly) and an acclaimed score from Ennio Morricone (A Lizard in a Woman's Skin), Vinegar Syndrome is proud to bring AUTOPSY to Blu-ray, fully uncensored and featuring its complete English and Italian language audio tracks fully intact.


Murder Mansion

On a dark and foggy night in the countryside, a group of apparent strangers all find themselves stranded at an old gothic mansion. Deciding to spend the night and look for help the following morning, the group pair off for bed. As the night wares on, increasingly strange events begin to occur, culminating in a murder. Tensions and suspicions rise, and fear mounts that the ghosts of the mansion have risen from the grave, especially when more bodies turn up...but is the explanation behind these ghastly events truly supernatural?

One of the best and most effective combinations of mid 60s style gothic Euro horror and early 70s flavored giallo intrigue, Francisco Lara Polpo's Spanish-Italian co-production, MURDER MANSION (originally titled 'The Mansion in the Fog') became a drive-in and late-nite TV hit in the US, during the mid 1970s. Never legally released in the United States on disc, Vinegar Syndrome proudly presents the Blu-ray premier of MURDER MANSION, newly restored in 4K from its original negative and includes its original Spanish soundtrack along with its English and nearly impossible to find Italian dubs.


Crazy Desires of a Murderer

The Countess Ileana has just returned to her family's grand old castle, where her paralyzed father, an apparent clairvoyant, and strange younger brother, with an unhealthy interest in taxidermy, reside. Almost immediately after arriving, one of Ileana's friends, who's visiting the castle, is shockingly murdered and has her eyes plucked out of their sockets. While suspicion falls on Ileana's brother, a curious police inspector (Sicilian character actor Corrado Gaipa of THE GODFATHER and MY DEAR KILLER) begins to investigate, believing there to be more to the killing than meets the eye. However, his sleuthing proves no match for this maniac, as the body count steadily rises...

A delirious mix of gothic horror, sex drama, murder mystery, plus a whole lot of extracted eyeballs, Filippo Walter Ratti's CRAZY DESIRES OF A MURDERER (though known in Italy as the much more lurid 'The Morbid Vices of a Housekeeper') remains one of the forgotten treats of late 70s giallo cinema. Never released theatrically in the English speaking world and virtually unavailable on home video, Vinegar Syndrome is delighted to bring this trashy rarity to Blu-ray, newly restored in 4K from its 35mm original negative!

NSFW

March 2021 TBD

Mario Bava's Black Sabbath (1963) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Le chat qui fume (France)



Boris Karloff hosts a trio of horror stories concerning a stalked call girl, a vampire-like monster who preys on his family, and a nurse who is haunted by her ring's rightful owner.

March 2021 TBD

Mario Bava's Erik the Conquerer (1961) on blu-ray from Le chat qui fume (France)



In the 9th Century, two Viking children, separated since their early childhood with one raised by the British and the other by Vikings, meet after nearly 20 years as rivals as war breaks out between Britian and the Vikings for control of England.

March 2021 TBD

Bruno Mattei's The True Story of the Nun of Monza (1980) on blu-ray from Le chat qui fume (France)



Sister Virginia de Leyva becomes the new Mother Superior at the convent of Monza. Said convent turns out to be a veritable hotbed of sinful carnality and depravity. Debauched priest Don Arrigone and lecherous womanizer Giampaolo Osio plot to seduce sister Virginia. But will their wicked and lustful actions continue to go unnoticed?



April 26, 2021

Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (2000) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Arrow (UK)



Presenting an alternate dystopian vision of turn-of-the-millennium Japan, Battle Royale follows the 42 junior high school students selected to take part in the government's annual Battle Royale programme, established as an extreme method of addressing concerns about juvenile delinquency. Dispatched to a remote island, they are each given individual weapons (ranging from Uzis and machetes to pan lids and binoculars), food and water, and the order to go out and kill one other. Every player is fitted with an explosive collar around their neck, imposing a strict three-day time limit on the deadly games in which there can only be one survivor. Overseeing the carnage is 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine, Hana-bi, Zatoichi) as the teacher pushed to the edge by his unruly charges.

Playing like a turbo-charged hybrid of Lord of the Flies and The Most Dangerous Game, the final completed work by veteran yakuza film director Kinji Fukasaku (Battles without Honor and Humanity, Graveyard of Honor) helped launch a new wave of appreciation for Asian cinema in the 21st century. Also included in the set is the incendiary sequel Battle Royale II, the directing debut of Kenta Fukasaku (after his father passed away during production), in which a new class of delinquents are recruited by the government to hunt down the survivor of the deadly games of the first film.



April 20, 2021

Jack Hill's Switchblade Sisters (1975) on blu-ray from Arrow



From Jack Hill, legendary director of Spider Baby, Coffy, Foxy Brown, and The Swinging Cheerleaders comes another iconic cult classic, Switchblade Sisters!

Lace (Robbie Lee), the leader of inner city girl gang The Dagger Debs, meets her match when new girl Maggie (Joanne Nail) moves into the neighborhood. Mistrust and conflict turn to friendship as the girls end up in Juvenile Detention together at the mercy of abusive guards. Meanwhile, The Dagger Debs' male counterparts The Silver Daggers have to contend with the arrival of a new gang, led by the villainous Crabs (Chase Newhart). But when the girls get back on the streets, a planned retaliation strike in tandem with The Silver Daggers backfires and puts Lace in hospital. Maggie assumes control, teaming up with Muff (Marlene Clark) and her gang of African-American militants from across town to declare all out war. But there's a traitor in their midst…

April 6, 2021

Nico Mastorakis' Death Has Blue Eyes (1976) on blu-ray from Arrow



When local gigolo Chess (Chris Nomikos) greets his vacationing friend Bob Kovalski (Peter Winter) at Athens airport, the pair embark on a string of scams and erotic dalliances that eventually lead them into contact with an elegant wealthy woman, Geraldine Steinwetz (Jessica Dublin), and her glamorous daughter Christine (Maria Aliferi). Geraldine blackmails the two cheeky bachelor boys into acting as bodyguards for Christine, whom it transpires has telepathic abilities and has had her eye on them for some time. After fleeing from a series of assassination attempts, it soon becomes clear that Geraldine herself might not be quite whom she seems, as the two young men find themselves caught up in a political conspiracy of international dimensions.

In his debut feature, maverick filmmaker Nico Mastorakis presents us with a generous meze of non-stop car, bike and helicopter chases, a bevy of beautiful girls with guns, sensational softcore sex scenes, psychic thrills and Cold War political intrigue set against the picturesque landscapes of 70s Greece.

2021 TBD

Walter Boos' Magdalena aka The Devil's Female (1974) on blu-ray from Dark Force Entertainment, from a 4K restoration



Magdalena is an orphan at a girls' school who gets possessed by a demonic supernatural force. She goes into convulsions and makes furniture fly around the room before she gets some help from an exorcist.

March 22, 2021

George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) on 4K UHD blu-ray (standard edition) from Second Sight (UK)



As modern society is consumed by zombie carnage, four desperate survivors barricade themselves inside a shopping mall to battle the flesh-eating hordes of the undead.

[wilder]

March 16, 2021

The Dungeon of Andy Milligan on limited edition blu-ray from Severin



He's been described as "The Fassbinder of 42nd Street" (Artforum), "a celebration of hate" (Bleeding Skull) and "an unmatched voice from the underbelly of low-budget cinema" (Rue Morgue). More than a quarter century after his death, he remains perhaps the most divisive name in genre history. Severin Films now presents the cranium-cleaving collection devoted to writer/actor/director Andy Milligan – "a gay sadist who pioneered New York's avant-garde theater world and made astonishingly unique exploitation movies" (Diabolique Magazine) – on 8 Blu-rays featuring 14 surviving films from his NYC and London years, 10+ hours of trailers, outtakes, interviews & audio commentaries, a bonus CD and an all-new 128-page book by Stephen Thrower that explores the profane madness behind it all. From his provocative underground work through his international scuzz-horror classics, experience the venomous legacy of the filmmaker Time Magazine calls "depraved, degenerate, desperate, damned" like never before.

Details here. Available from Severin's online store.

Two recent podcasts on Andy Milligan:

Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan discussed him on the Daughters of Darkness Podcast

And he was the subject of the Severin Films Podcast a couple episodes ago

[jenkins]

i want Samm Deighan to explain everything to me

you know my Milligan path was The Man with Two Heads ages ago, and i just realized it was actually The Thing with Two Heads i was thinking about, and Vapors was my first Milligan ever. he’s really landed on the scene, though in another way he’s been on the scene and just when i became aware of him this boxset arrived

[wilder]

Samm Deighan: I do feel like you kind of already hit the nail on the head of why so many people hate him is because he’s usually described as being a horror movie director who’s sort of along the lines of someone like Al Adamson, but the truth is that he made these really, really misanthropic melodramas that are all about families that hate each other, and a lot of the time they’re masquerading as horror movies, or they have genre elements but they’re not really horror movies…

Kat Ellinger: Yeah they’re not horror movies, and he’ll often cut away before the actual horror—

Samm Deighan: Because he doesn’t give a shit about the horror!

[jenkins]

They both inform me about the topic and make me feel less alone. The whole thing about Milligan-hating being rewarding reminded me about myself.

[WorldForgot]

my first Andy Milligan was Vapors, from the VS Sexploitation Signature Series. missing out on his Fleshpot on 42nd Street is a particular regret of mine, especially now that I've seen Vapors. so it's from 1965, it's his first movie (~30min short), it's set in a bath house, men seeking men, it's b&w and there isn't a single dick shown. sex movies are still just beginning, which I knew from Vibrations. pre-hardcore it's super soft core. no sex here: this movie is tender, it's dimensional, it's full of character, and it's a million fucking miles from Hollywood movies in this time period, much closer to something like Shadows. it's hella authentic seeming even if it's obviously a movie. everyone is acting natural

Damn, what a beautiful performance piece and exercise in juxtaposition Vapors iz ~

A psychological space within & without compassion

[jenkins]

it's going to be a minute until I can watch it but it's singing to me, Fleshpot

[jenkins]

A bootlegger People's Court episode that's famous in cult land

[jenkins]

they're still my overall peeps

First up is the 80s Spanish exploitation/thriller marvel HUNTING GROUND aka COTO DE CAZA!
Adele, a female lawyer, played brilliantly by Assumpta Serna, passionately defends criminals, believing that everyone deserves a second chance and that criminality is more often than not bred by deprivation. In the courtroom a pair of local hoods see her in action and decide to follow her. They steal her car, find the keys to her country villa and decide to rob the place. Unfortunately Adele's family turn up at the villa mid-robbery, and her husband is killed. But that is only the beginning of the nightmare …
Directed by Jorge Grau who make the horror classics BLOOD CEREMONY and LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE, HUNTING GROUND is an intense, gripping crime story that takes a savagely realistic look at the social dived between the rich and the poor in the big city. The climax of the film is unrelenting in its depiction of sexual violence and revenge and includes one of the most shocking sequences ever seen in a mainstream film. 
Mondo Macabro is proud to present this underseen Eurotrash classic in its first ever English friendly home video release and for the first time ever in HD.
DISC FEATURES
Region Free world Blu-ray premiere
Brand New 4K restoration from film negative
Choice of English dub or Spanish Language with optional English subtitles
Archival interview with director Jorge Grau

LIMITED EDITION FEATURES
1200 numbered copies in the famous red case
Reversible sleeve with brand new art by Justin Coffee on the A side and original Mexican VHS art on the B side
20 page booklet with brand new writing on the film by Spanish film expert Ismael Fernandez

This release will go up for sale at 9 AM Pacific Time (google what time that is where you live) on Thursday March 11 at mondomacabro.bigcartel.com. A half an hour later at 9:30 AM Pacific it will go on sale at our main site, mondo-macabro.com.

Spanish horror star Paul Naschy plays a multitude of roles in a tour-de-force performance in one of his best and most personal films, which he also wrote and directed.
Naschy plays Hector Doriani a stage and screen actor who feel himself living in the shadow of his dead twin brother, Alex Doriani, a famous star of horror movies. Alex’s young son, Adrian,
now lives with Hector in an isolated mansion in the countryside. To keep his father's memory alive, the boy imagines himself visited by the spirit of the dead man, incarnated in a series of classic horror character from the past: Mr. Hyde, the Frankenstein Monster, the Phantom of the Opera etc. Also making an appearance in the young child’s fantasies is Waldemar Daninsky, the werewolf character made famous by Naschy himself.
Eric, Alex Doriani’s former butler, now also works for Hector. His main role is to locate and bring to the mansion a series of women who are paid large sums of money by Hector to take part in various
sadistic sex games. To complicate matters even further, the games always seem to end with the women getting slaughtered in various gruesome ways by a black gloved, masked killer.
Also on hand is horror diva Caroline Munro, as Hector’s housekeeper and cook, who is being pursued by a local priest with whom she once had a much-regretted affair.
The whole bubbling caldron of mayhem and misbehavior really boils over when Eric the butler mounts a séance to bring back the body of his dead master. But it is not Alex who appears… and all
hell literally breaks loose.
One of the last films to be directed by Paul Naschy, HOWL OF THE DEVIL was, for many years, impossible to see in anything like its intended form. This first HD presentation of the film shows it at
last in its true glory. One of Naschy’s most savage and most heartfelt films, its reappearance is an event worth celebrating.
DISC FEATURES
Region Free world Blu-ray premiere
Brand New 4K restoration from film negative
Spanish Language with optional English subtitles
Brand new audio commentary by Rod Barnett and Troy Guinn of the Naschycast
Debut of previously unreleased archival "making of" documentary
Brand new interview with Naschy's son Sergio Molina, who appears in the film
LIMITED EDITION FEATURES
1500 numbered copies in the famous red case
Reversible sleeve with brand new art by Rick Melton on the A side (censored here but will be uncensored on the product itself) and original poster art by Jano on the B side
Full color booklet with brand new writing on the film by Naschy expert Shane M. Dallmann
This release will go up for sale at 9 AM Pacific Time (google what time that is where you live) on Thursday March 11 at mondomacabro.bigcartel.com. A half an hour later at 9:30 AM Pacific it will go on sale at our main site, mondo-macabro.com.

[WorldForgot]

Don't Deliver Us From Evil remains me one Mondo Macabro experience, but it's the kinda film I'm not sure I could have seen any other way, the sort of jagged film that's neither pure genre or conventionally cult. You get to that fringe and it's like specialty label or ny's Spectacle or perhaps the Bev, if the film print luck strikes.

[wilder]

^ Looking forward to Hunting Ground and generally interested to see more Jorge Grau released.

Don't Deliver Us From Evil remains me one Mondo Macabro experience, but it's the kinda film I'm not sure I could have seen any other way, the sort of jagged film that's neither pure genre or conventionally cult. You get to that fringe and it's like specialty label or ny's Spectacle or perhaps the Bev, if the film print luck strikes.

Also dying to see that. Have been holding out for an HD upgrade but just noticed Diabolik had a few copies of Mondo Macabro’s DVD left in stock. How long the gap will be between that disappearing and whatever new edition lies in the future is unknown, so I went for it.

In other news, Code Red put out Paolo Solvay and Joe D'Amato’s The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973) back in January, which is a film I learned about while perusing the releases of German arthouse label, artus films



Lady Dracula uses Dracula's ring to lure beautiful girls to her castle, where she murders them so she can bathe in their blood.

Other discoveries made through their website:

Lucio Fulci’s Dangerous Obsession aka The Devil’s Honey (1980), which is available from Severin in the US

&

Canevari Cesare’s Matalo! (1970)

In deeper Spaghetti Western circles, director Cesare Canevari’s ¡Mátalo! is known as one of the most unusual in the canon. Eschewing dialogue for the most part (apparently at one point Canevari intended the only word in the film to be “Mátalo!”) and employing weird dissonant music alternating with a jamming acid rock soundtrack, this could reasonably fall into the Acid Western subgenre.

[jenkins]

Don't Deliver Us From Evil remains me one Mondo Macabro experience, but it's the kinda film I'm not sure I could have seen any other way, the sort of jagged film that's neither pure genre or conventionally cult. You get to that fringe and it's like specialty label or ny's Spectacle or perhaps the Bev, if the film print luck strikes.

totally. they have such an appreciative perspective of appreciable qualities

the sibling to Don't Deliver Us From Evil is Alucarda. I consider Lady Terminator an essential for a handful of reasons. now, I know you're the kind of person who can understand that I don't consider that movie a guilty pleasure. I don't think it's my liking the taste of trash, I think it's a wonder of human achievement and I mean that. what you got here is Hollywood imagined through an Indonesian lens, with a tourist playing the lead character, inspired by local mythology. I wrote about that movie, and I also wrote about H. Tjut Djalil's Mystics in Bali. so, Mystics in Bali I'm partial to because it was the first movie I'd seen like that, although now I know there are other, even better, movies like that, and it's not necessarily one of my top recommendations like some of the others I'm mentioning. so, Paul Naschy is a big deal in cult land, and I unlocked him through The Devil Incarnate, which is impressive enough that it knocked me flat. I've never seen such outer limits performed so straight facedly. I've never experienced a full-force genre movie with such clarity of inner dimensions, which is mondo in a nutshell

plus others. for sure. didn't want to overload the conversation