The Grindhouse Report

[piranesi]

Is it SHE FREAK (1967)?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062259/

 

Great poster, by the way.  Just as exploitive and grimy as possible

 

[(BP)]

4 minutes ago, piranesi said:

Is it SHE FREAK (1967)?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062259/

Yes!

[piranesi]

I want to advocate a little for a movie that shows up on B Movie TV a lot, THE BRONX WAR (1991).  It's a super-low budget direct-to-video crime drama that focuses on a Puerto-Rican crack dealer who fancies himself the champion of his neighborhood and wants to be something like the godfather who gets caught up in a gang war trying to protect his sister-in-law.

The action scenes are terrible and its not high on visual style, but the characters and dialog are fun and funny and endearing.  They show it a lot and I never really gave it a chance but it's worth it.

It is written, directed by, and stars Joseph B. Vasquez who went on to direct HANGIN' WITH THE HOMEBOYS and seemed to be on the verge of a real career in comedy before he kind of lost his mind and then died of AIDS in 1996.  The guy had charisma and an acute sense of how to inject comedy into ugly situations to make his characters feel likable and real.

I mean, yes, it looks bad, like a video shot in your friends house, and there are a ton of emotional cliches, especially a scene with some corrupt cops that is laughable in the on-the-nose expositional diaolog....but there is also just a ton of heart and no matter how simpllistic the story, there is a real and ambitious film-maker seeping out of this and it sucks that he died so young.  I mean, it's no mean streets.  But the guy was clearly headed toward doing comedy and that heartfelt stuff works better there.

It's just a guy with his degree from City College making his own movie in his neighborhood and for that, it's a surprising little gem.

Give it a watch!

 

[piranesi]

Next episode of NIGHT FLIGHT I'm watching is a bunch of early 80s video art projects.  Right now, super avant-garde performance artist Nam Jun Paik's project about Jewish kids and their fathers which features Allen Ginsberg confronting his father via old tapes.  Okay, a sped up version of the Ode To Joy is playing while Allen Ginsberg is shown "jogging" across the ocean.

Now a really nice piece by Max Almy called perfect leader which is like a create the perfect politician CAW but done in 1984 before any such thing as CAW existed really.  It's kind of amazing how prescient it is for that tech. idea even if the message is a little bit obvious.

But, holy shit this would have fried my 13 year old brain and made me a sullen teen SO FAST:

They follow up with Will Powers' SMILE featuring 1982-esque motion capture.

And then ACT III by Dean Winkler and John Sanborn with music by Phillip Glass which is AMAZING:

THIS WAS BASIC CABLE IN 1984!!!!!!

EVERYONE SHOULD BUY A ROKU AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE NIGHT FLIGHT CHANNEL!!!

[Curt McGirt]

I still don't know why Adult Swim doesn't have a music video show. It's not like they don't promote enough music themselves, and they show shit that looks like this all the time in their between-show bits and Off the Air. 

[piranesi]

If you've never seen Michele Soavi's insane philosophical zom-com Dellamorte Dellamore (1994: released in the US at some point as THE CEMETERY MAN), it is now showing up on B Movie TV.

 

 

It is gory in the most hilarious ways, not as over the top as something like early Peter Jackson and way more Italian in its endless philosophizing than Shaun of the Dead.  But even that seems to be a rib as the somber dialog and constant observations about the futility of life seem to be an endless joke at the expense of capital C Cinema....maybe...it's hard to tell.  Like, at one point Death

 

like, actual Death

visits the zombie killing guy to ask him why he is killing the dead when there are so many more annoying among the living...and so we spend most of the rest of the movie with Rupert Everett killing non-zombie people, mostly out of ennui.  There's a neat scene that re-uses that Wendy Carlos version of Beethoven from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE while he goes on a killing spree, instercutting his victims (local thugs) with pages of the phone book flying by the camera.  Neat!

It's kind of like if Fellini's less skillful and optimistic brother made an 80s Italian Zombi movie.

If you're never thought you wanted to see a small army of undead boy scouts and nuns gorily de-headed by Rupert Everett while his enourmous mentally challenged manservant shovels spaghetti into his mouth, I can assure you that you, in fact, do want to see that.

If you've never thought you wanted to see an enourmous mentally challenged manservant play the violin to lure the severed head of a young girl to roll across a cemetery and come and live with him inside his busted-up t.v. where she sings songs and he feeds her...I assure can assure that you, in fact, do want to see that.

If you never thought you wanted to see an elderly deceased man rise out of his grave while his young widow is having sex with the cemetery caretaker on top of his grave...I can assure you that you, in fact, do want to see that.

If you never thought you wanted to see a zombie burst from the grave ON HIS MOTORCYCLE WHICH WAS I GUESS BURIED WITH HIM WITH HIS MANGLED MOTORCYCLE HELMET STILL ON HIS HEAD FORM THE BUS ACCIDENT THAT KILLED HIM only to grab his girlfriend and ride off with her...I can assure you that you, in fact, do want to see that.

If you believe the internet, Martin Scorcese called this the most important Itlian film of the 90s or something.

 

[piranesi]

Guys, Rupert Everett just met what he thinks is the reincarnated spirit of a zombie he had previously fallen in love with, but she has a phobia about penises, so he is going to have his surgically removed...only to learn afterward that the woman has been raped by the mayor and decided to run off with him.

 

Guys...

I think this movie is what they call a "problematic fave."

 

GODDAMIT, THE MOVIE JUST CUT OFF AND CUT TO AN EPISODE OF BATTLE OF THE PLANETS!!!

B Movie TV, seriously...I know you're a free app on the roku...BUT SERIOSUSLYSYSYS

If you're curious, the episode is "The Space Mummy." THAT DOESN"T MAKE THIS BETTER!!!

Nevermind.  Concrete Blonde is on Night Flight and it's 1988 there and they're runnign a piece about how everyone needs to go see HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE so I'm good for the night. Robert Townsend just made a joke about Meryl Streep being nominated for too many oscars...in 1988.

Now they're playing "I Lost on Jeapardy."  Things AER LOOKING UP!!

[Meltzing Pot]

I've been out of the B-Movie TV game for a few weeks, and I think maybe I need to tune in for Midnight Sleaze tonight. This thread has inspired me.

[piranesi]

I don't know, man.  Right now Night Flight is playing the music video for Cheech Marin's "Born In East L.A." 

And now Mickey Rooney is doing a bit with Jane Mansfield's boobs, the punchline of which is "Who wants to be tall?"

B Movie tv may have lost me for the night.

Hey, everyone, remember how much Radio K.A.O.S. sucked?  1988, man!

[piranesi]

So after a particularly short (like barely an hour) Ray Dennis Steckler movie, THE HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER, a movie that manages to have at least two hours of filler footage of people walking the streets of 1979 LA even though it's runtime is only 65 minutes, B MOVIE TV has a lot of time to fill before the next feature.

Their filler?  The pilot episode of THE MASTER!!!! (episodes of which were strung together in what some of you may know as MASTER NINJA and MASTER NINJA 2 on MST3K).  This ins't taht bullshit version cut down to fit into a movie paired with another episode.  This is the FULL DIRECTO"RS CUT PILOT EPISODE COLLECTORS EDITION STEEL BOX BABY!!!!

I can remember watching this pilot at a neighbor kid's house on a Friday night in '84 and having no idea that the girl I was watching was going to become Demi Moore or that the dufus main character would go on to be Timothy van Patten, director of some of the best tv show episodes ever made from THE WIRE to THE SOPRANOS to GAME OF THRONES, or that Clu Gulager was the coolest mofo what ever did live.

Hell, I don't think I knew who Lee van Cleef was at that time.  I was 100% there for Sho Kosugi.  This was the same year I got suspended for buying a "chinese star" from a kid in bathroom at the park and taking it to school.  1984!

And here is the end credit song from THE HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER

 

It is easily the best part of this movie.

 

[Curt McGirt]

Aw, you didn't get to see the end of Cemetery Man? Just go buy it. I'm sure you can find it cheap somewhere. And yes, it might be the last gasp of Italian cinema -- real Italian Cinema, as bizarre and contradictory and beautiful and shocking as it can be -- ever. One of my favorite films.

[piranesi]

Courtesy of 1965's surprisingly slick and watchable FRANKENSTEIN VS. THE SPACE MONSTER:

Is there anyone here whose secret fantasy is not to wrap their arms around James Karen's body while he drives you around San Juan on his Vespa while some distant cousins of The Dave Clark Five sing you into blissful symbiosis?

 

 

DO I REALLY NEED OT AKS THAT OF COURSE NOT!!!

Note: The "Space Monster"

was played by Crispin Glover's dad in a gorilla suit.  And you can really tell! 

YEEEEAH!!!

 

[odessasteps]

"Shaw Brothers Universe is a site that makes it easy for you to find and watch over 760 Shaw Brothers movies."

http://shawbrothersuniverse.com/

[Curt McGirt]

Aw man, I just came in with less than an hour left on Cyborg Cop II!

Cyborgs wearing outfits with heavily padded shoulders just strangled a guy with the pipe connected to a muffler. Thankfully JACK RYAN~! shows up (in slow motion) on his motorsickle to save a woman and child from cyborg murder. The cops show up and the cyborgs put on machine-gun and rocket-launcher hands to fight them and blow shit up. Of course this is at an auto shop/gas station (where the cyborgs are stealing diesel fuel for some reason) so a lot of shit blows up, including a police helicopter. Things explode and explode some more. Afterwards JACK is taken into custody and they leave him with his fanny pack. Of course he escapes after busting out a headlock takeover on a dude that sends him down a flight of stairs. Now he's fighting cyborgs with flares, a fire extinguisher, and an arc welder?! More shit blows up and JACK's dad or something is stabbed by a giant cyborg hand-knife (seriously, it's like a giant Bowie knife attached to its arm). JACK finally teams up with the hot federale who's been harassing him (and vice versa though that would be sexual harassment) and they infiltrate the cyborg compound to blow more shit up real good. The cyborgs are on an "A-Team villain" level of gunfire-to-hitting-target ratio here. OH NO THE MAIN CYBORG HAS JACK'S KID! Good lord the ending is so bad -- Jack's kid somehow knows how to work a giant magnet hanging from the ceiling, it sucks up Mr. Cyborg, they drop him on some electrocuted surface for some really bad visual FX, pour gas on him and blow him up, then blow up a super obvious miniature of the complex which looks like something a fifth-grader aspiring to be a filmmaker would have shot on his dad's Super 8 camera back in the '80s. Did I mention the cyborgs are like the Borgs in Star Trek and are trying to assimilate humans? That too. 

Kudos, Sam Firstenberg. You never let us down. 

EDIT: Oh no, Mean Guns starring Christopher Lambert and Ice-T directed by our other great benefactor Albert Pyun is on in an hour. I think I need more beer...

[bazzil]

Two reviews of Cyborg Cop on the last page and both failed to mention the fact that our hero spends virtually the entire movie wearing a fanny pack, including in the fight scenes.

Is this DVDVR?

[Curt McGirt]

On 7/25/2016 at 2:52 AM, Curt McGirt said:

Afterwards JACK is taken into custody and they leave him with his fanny pack.

 

[piranesi]

If anyone wants to relive the heyday of USA UP ALL NIGHT, tonight starting at 2:30 am, Sony Movie Network is airing VICE ACADEMY followed by its loose 90s thematic sequel BIKINI ACADEMY.

If you look all the way back to the first post in this thread you will note the following as being central to this discussion:

"anything that mixes "ski" "swim" "stewardess" "beach" or "up the" with the word "academy""

So we are pretty on target here.

You will have to simulate Gilbert Godfrey and/or Rhonda Shear on your own.

Protip: Godrfey will be easier for most of you to pull off.

They are also running some 70s coming-of-age schlock tonight: THE VAN at 8:00 and tonight at like 4:00 am (DVR!) THE POM POM GIRLS.

[piranesi]

If anyone wants to relive the heyday of USA UP ALL NIGHT, tonight starting at 2:30 am, Sony Movie Network is airing VICE ACADEMY followed by its loose 90s thematic sequel BIKINI ACADEMY.

If you look all the way back to the first post in this thread you will note the following as being central to this discussion:

"anything that mixes "ski" "swim" "stewardess" "beach" or "up the" with the word "academy""

So we are pretty on target here.

You will have to simulate Gilbert Godfrey and/or Rhonda Shear on your own.

Protip: Godrfey will be easier for most of you to pull off.

They are also running some 70s coming-of-age schlock tonight: THE VAN at 8:00 and tonight at like 4:00 am (DVR!) THE POM POM GIRLS.

[Curt McGirt]

Since me and my gang didn't watch it for Halloween, I just put on Nightmare City AKA City of the Walking Dead by Umberto Lenzi, and boy did I wish I had everyone here to MST3K the shit out of it. Loads of nudity, bad looking blood, worse dubbing, but surprisingly good camerawork (the Italians always do it better) and the fastest paced zombies up until 30 Days Later came out. 

It also has one of the greatest posters for a horror film ever

Clearly the film's villains don't own up to the promise of the poster 

[bobholly138]

 

Never heard of this film before. So when I found the VHS for 25 cents I had to grab it. Thought Lorenzo Llamas on the cover,but it isn't him.

The plot is pretty much a low budget Children of men. But made years before that film.

No idea if this has a DVD release. But Showtime seems to show it at least every other month.

[Curt McGirt]

It's ending on Starz/Encore Action right now, but just the fact that Luigi Cozzi's masterpiece is on TV again brightens my day. I give you... HERCULES

Features: Cybil Danning's rack, Lou Ferrigno's "acting", and a lot of Italian filmmaking ingenuity

Here's the trailer in case you just want a taste of the magic

 

[Curt McGirt]

Don't forget to check out the sequel too! Golan/Globus had such a surefire hit they knew they had to double-up on their investment, to predictable, and maybe even more stellar results. 

[bobholly138]

Saw both  the Hercules films in a theater as a kid. Great stuff.

[Curt McGirt]

https://vimeo.com/42600142

The always dependable Daily Grindhouse led me to this (NSFW) 20 minute feature on Vimeo. It is...

KEN FOREE

IN

BLACK SANTA'S REVENGE

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, it's pretty awesome. Merry Christmas, motherfuckers! 

 

[FluffSnackwell]

Dammit, ain't checked in for a good little while and what's this.....Curt mentioned Nightmare Shitty. Highlight has to be where Hugo Stiglitz chucks the unplugged TV at the zombies and it somehow explodes. What was that all about? So did we ever all come to a consensus on whether the zombies looked more like wolfmen with the mange or some strange hybrid between tainted meatloaf and the walking dead? The picture presented there makes a strong case for both.  I'll have to check out BSR later as the poster for it is my go-to random ass Christmas greeting image.