Chiefly circulated amongst fans of extreme cinema in a version culled from its US VHS release, under the tacky title Naked Massacre, the 1976 picture Born for Hell offers an intriguing look at the case of Richard Speck, who during a single night in 1966 murdered eight student nurses in a Chicago townhouse – through […]
The production of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now in the Pagsanjan region of the Philippines left behind a local filmmaking infrastructure ripe for exploitation. During the 1980s, numerous filmmakers capitalised on this. Severin Films have released one such film, Alan Birkinshaw’s 1982 picture Invaders of the Lost Gold, on Blu-ray for the first time. Made […]
The cannibal movie cycle of the late Seventies and early Eighties will forever seem like a strange beast. Splicing stock footage of animals doing their thing with often garish animal cruelty, then layering in gore effects, nudity and any number of practices which would very likely fail to get past an ethics committee today, the […]
Honestly, I’m the sort of reviewer who thinks that the vast majority of slashers (and many gialli) are better enjoyed as still images than films – being largely an array of stylish, bloody set pieces only loosely linked by some sort of plot – so watching Sergio Martino’s crossover film Torso was an opportunity for […]
1970s cinema has many noteworthy qualities, but amongst these, the decade is certainly remarkable for its brief, but intriguing phase of imagining animals ‘going rogue’ and attacking humans; some of the resulting films were breakthrough hits, such as Jaws (1975), whereas some, such as Day of the Animals (1977) would be long-lost to obscurity if […]
Savage Streets (1984) Distributor: Arrow DVD Release Date: 20th June 2011 Directed by: Danny Steinmann Starring: Linda Blair, Sal Landi, Robert Dryer, Linnea Quigley, John Vernon Review by: Ben Bussey Now it’s 1984, knock-knocking at your front door. And would you believe it; the kids are out of control. They’re not going out to the library […]
Virgin Witch (1971) Distributor: Odeon Entertainment DVD Release Date (UK): 28th February 2011 Directed by: Ray Austin Starring: Ann Michelle, Vicki Michelle, Keith Buckley, Patricia Haines Review by: Ben Bussey Two beautiful, virginal, adolescent sisters run away from home with dreams of fame and fortune in London town. Promptly picked up by a smooth-talker in […]
Cannibal Girls (1972) Distributor: Nucleus Films Release Date (UK): 14th February 2011 Directed by: Ivan Reitman Starring: Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Ronald Ulrich Review by: Ben Bussey Farnhamville is a little Canadian town, situated somewhere between Nowhere and Buttfuck. Despite the notable absence of anything to see or do, it seems the town has enough […]