Oh Karen!

Devil Fetus (1983)

Uhhhh... ahhhh... ohhh babyyy...

Yes, close to VHS orgasm!! I've secured a deal with a very nice gent in Holland who is willing to part with this beauty! Obviously, he's getting something very nice too but THIS... is just fan-tastic!!!

In case you aren't quite familiar with the ins and outs of Hong Kong cinema; DEVIL FETUS belongs to that niche within HK horror movies that predominately existed in the dark ages. Yes, I'm talking about the 1980s. Back then the Hongkongese churned out a couple dozen horror movies that were dark, nasty, gory, and didn't have any slapstick humour in them. They were a far cry from horror films like the beautiful A CHINESE GHOST STORY or action filled films like MR VAMPIRE (not that I have anything against those films, I love them dearly, I'm just stating a fact).

By the way, you don't need to spend neither dough nor much of your valuable time on tracking down a 20 year old obsolete ex-rental tape from a video rental shop in Kowloon, haha. DEVIL FETUS was recently re-released on DVD and VCD in HK from Fortune Star so it's quite easy (and cheap) to get hold of. You can get it from DDDHouse (link almost at the bottom on this page in the bar on the right).

(click scans for bigger size)

Now, if someone could just get me THE RAPE AFTER (HK vhs, vcd, LD), RED SPELL SPELLS RED (HK vhs + LD), SEEDING OF A GHOST (HK vhs), and CENTIPEDE HORROR (HK vhs + LD) I'd be a happy man.




A couple of years back my mate Günter Müller in Austria reviewed DEVIL FETUS on his legendary site WEIRD ASIA. Unfortunately, Weird Asia is no more but I wrote to Günter and asked him to send me the old review which I'm posting here.

Günter, old buddy, if you're reading this let me just once again point out to you how sorely missed Weird Asia is!! In a Cyberspace world of kung fu movie freaks who dis dark HK horror movies for not having enough kung fu in them (duh!) and for being too weird/gory/sadistic (gee, makes for a GOOD horror movie in MY book!!) your site is definitely needed!! I hope you'll find the time to come back one day.

DEVIL FETUS
aka MOH TOI
aka MO TAI
Hongkong 1983
Directed by: Lau Hung Chuen
Cast: Lui Sau Ling, Ngaai Dik, Lo Pooi Pooi, Lau Dan, Ho Pak Kwong, Leung Saan, Gam Wing Cheung...
Running Time: 88 min.

[by Günter Müller]
If I’m informed correctly DEVIL FETUS should be easily available on VCD, in wonderful widescreen, both in subtitled and unsubtitled versions! I also own a DEVIL FETUS tape, that has English subtitles, but sadly is a horrible full screen version. It should go without saying that the subtitled widescreen disc is the way to go. All those versions seem to be fully uncut too, by the way. DEVIL FETUS is rated Category III, and to be honest, I can’t explain why. Sure, it’s gory and bizarre, but I think it won’t get a CAT III rating if released today. And if you’re expecting gratuitous sex and/or explicit sexual violence because of the rating - you definitely are wrong! There are a few spoilers ahead so read at your own risk!

The film opens with a girl who buys a statue in an auction, from where at night a monster gets out of, and it does exactly what monsters out of statues usually do: it rapes the girl (parallel’s to the excellent THE RAPE AFTER (1983) are obvious; accidentally, both movies were made in 1983!). At this time you think that the girl will produce an offspring that jumps out of her womb and kills various people in many gory ways, right? Wrong! The confusing story deals with possessed people, dogs and furniture, who attack various characters and try to finish them off. They don’t succeed most of the time. Then why is this one called DEVIL FETUS, you wanna know? Don’t ask me, I have not the slightest idea. But who needs a fetus when the movie is as entertaining as this one, with a few outstanding set-pieces and gory highlights?

Such as a man who rips the decayed flesh on his face away and reveals crawling and writhing worms underneath. A girl who vomits live worms (also seen in CENTIPEDE HORROR (1982) and SEEDING OF A GHOST (1983), yuck!). A nice dog who is possessed and attacks a man, and in the fierce struggle gets killed with a sword (I do hope not for real!) Later, it (the dog) is eviscerated and another possessed guy munches on his guts in best Italian cannibal movie fashion (I again hope not for real!). A big bird (an eagly maybe) is killed by cutting its throat (this sadly IS for real). The absolute highlight: a man is trapped in a small room, when suddenly the walls are closing in on him. It’s nice that one side has a glass window, so we are able to witness the slow crushing of his head in wonderfully gory fashion! Yeah! This scene is incredible! One of my favourite head-crushings of all time, even better then the classic sequence in the unrated THE TOXIC AVENGER (1985). And then there is the showdown where the monster appears out of a possessed man (it rips his skin away), gets decapitated, but a few heads grow instead of the old one, and all of ‘em are decapitated too. The last shot is one of the most wonderful in Hong Kong horror cinema history, with a severed head - after attacking a woman - being killed with a sword and then the head starts to decay before our very eyes via stop-motion! This effect looks a bit cheap and phony, but it is very inventive and incredibly charming (think of the stop motion scenes in THE EVIL DEAD (1982) and BASKET CASE (1982), and you get the idea). Well done, folks! Give me more of this! With scenes like that, who cares if the movie makes any sense (which it doesn’t)? Certainly not me!

DEVIL FETUS is maybe one of the weirdest movies I ever had the pleasure of watching. There’s so much going on, and little of it makes any sense, so you sit there, shaking the head, and wondering what the hell is going on. A very entertaining, bizarre and gory horror movie from the wonderful 1980s, not to be missed! I think I will never forget the excellent head-crushing and the last image (of the severed decayed head ‘rolling’ towards the camera and grinning into it) when the credits start to roll...

DEVIL FETUS was Lau Hung Chuen’s debut movie as director. He followed it with THE GHOST INFORMER (1984), A CHINESE LEGEND (1991) and THOSE WERE THE DAYS (1996) among others. Beside being a director, he made himself a name as a very competent cinematographer. His credits include UNDECLARED WAR (1990), QUEEN’S HIGH (1991), THE SWORD STAINED WITH ROYAL BLOOD (1993) and THUNDERBOLT (1995). The producer of DEVIL FETUS is a certain Lo Wei, well-known as the director of the Bruce Lee starring THE BIG BOSS (1971) and FIST OF FURY (1972).
The review is based on the unsubtitled VCD. I didn’t bother to watch the subtitled full screen tape again, sorry. There’s too little time anyway.

Friday Fun Trailer

LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS (aka The Ship Of Monsters, 1960)


Heeey, it's Friday! (although in the words of Primus: "Funny thing about weekends when you're unemployed. They don't quite mean so much", haha) and I've pulled out a FUN trailer for y'all for the (probably) cool Mexican horror/sci-fi movie LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS, or as it's known in English The Ship of Monsters.
I haven't actually watched the film (but I will soon as the DVD has arrived!!) but people I know swear this is one of the most fun Mexican horror flicks. If you've watched old Mexican horror movies for a while you might recognise some of the monsters in other movies. One of my Saturday Night Fright Flick trailers was SANTO & BLUE DEMON VS. THE MONSTERS which among others featured the Cyclops from this movie.

There's more scans on the Cinediondo blog which is also where I discovered the film and nicked the scans.

NB: I know, I know! Strictly speaking this isn't a trailer but there are no trailers on YouTube for NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS and I wanted to show something from it. LIVE WITH IT, CABRÓN!!!







LORENA VELAZQUEZ INTERVIEW

After I finished the above post (this was all meant to be just a three line post!) I wanted to re-read an online interview with Lorena Velazquez who plays one of the films lovely aliens. She was also in EL PLANETA DE LAS MUJERES INVASORAS (aka Planet of Invading Women) which I've written about before on this blog. The interview was posted on a web-page put up by the San Diego Latino Film Festival where the interview was held in 2008.

However, much to my surprise the entire site has been removed! Or maybe it's just not working at the moment but, regardless, it isn't there now and who knows when and if it'll be back up. Luckily, I had already saved a copy of the page on my computer and I'll post the interview here because it would be a pity if it just disappeared for all eternity. Unfortunately, somehow the pictures on the copy I saved didn't make it so you'll have to do without. And yes I'm aware I'm entering into criminal activity here by posting someone else's interview but, as I said, it's far too cool to lose.

San Diego Latino Film Festival Highlight: Lorena Velazquez
March 14, 2008 by Beth Accomando

If you weren't at the San Diego Latino Film Festival last Friday for the 1966 sci-fi cult classic El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras/Planet of Invading Women then you missed seeing its star Lorena Velazquez in person. The statuesque Mexican actress still looked great at 68 and draped in multiple strands of pearls. In her comments after the film, she said that we need "the old Mexican glamour back." Well she certainly provided a dose of that glamour at the festival as she accepted an award from SDLFF founder Ethan Van Thillo. Although she will not appear at the festival again, you do have the chance to catch her in the 1960 film La Nave de Los Monstruos/Ship of Monsters Friday March 14 at 10pm. (Listen to her description of the film.) This film surpasses El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras to deliver a delightful sci-fi romp complete with space babes in bathing suits, robots, assorted monsters and a singing Mexican cowboy. I had a chance to interview her before the screening.

At last Friday's screening, Velazquez said that she was discovered by Rene Cardona (the father of "Mexploitation" director Rene Cardona Jr.) in a school play. Cardona was a friend of her father, Mexican character actor Victor Velazquez. She also described her films as "really naive, really innocent but it was lots of fun to do them." She even suggested that although Hollywood started doing these kinds of films, it was Mexico that invented all of this!

Local Tijuana filmmaker Aaron Soto asked if she had ever heard about a comment from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar in which he said that his dream was to make a biography of her life because she is one of the most beautiful actresses ever. Her answer was that she heard him say that about herself and her sister, Teresa (another legendary Mexican actress), and she also heard that characters in his films were inspired by the two of them. She ended by saying she was "flattered and he's a gentleman."

I had a chance to sit down with Velazquez last Friday before she presented her film. Here's what she had to say.

BETH ACCOMANDO: Tell me about the films that are showing at the festival?
LORENA VELAZQUEZ: In El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras, they think we came from the moon or Saturn with our space ship. We came and I'm the queen of the planet but I have a sister and she's very good. She's my twin. I'm the queen but I'm a bad girl. The story is very interesting and very new in the year of 1962-63, it was very new because no one was touching those kind of story. The other picture, La Nave de Los Monstruos/Ship of Monsters, was with the beautiful comedian Lalo Gonzales "Piporro" and he's from the north of Mexico City, and he was a big liar in the film. He take drinks and he came to the bar and he say "Listen what I did, I kill a big bear and a lion." And everybody say, "Oh, you're a liar. We're not going to believe you." Once he find us and the space ship and he came immediately to the bar and he says, "Listen this is the true, I saw the women from another planet and I saw the space ship and you have to believe me this is the truth I saw them." And everybody say "Oow, comcom'on you're a big liar." It's beautiful. Everything is like the comedy this is not the tragedy. This is you have to be laughing no? All the time, at least we did. This is almost 40 years, 50 years now so you have to see the picture, and in Mexico we don't have all the money that the Americans have so this is a little bit cheaper the picture.

BA: Did you have fun making those pictures?
LV: Yeah sure. I been making pictures since I was 14. My first picture I made it under the water, yeah really. Because we swim very well in the picture. We made a beautiful picture under the water or almost all under he water. I made my first picture in Mexico when I was 14 years old. I'm not going to tell how old I am. [she laughs] But can you imagine I'm 68. [IMDb has her age as 70 but who am I to argue.] And I made 280 films, really. I was retired because I was married with an American boy. He was a GM dealer in Mexico. [She now acts in Mexico's highly popular Telenovelas.]

BA: Do you have any memories about making La Nave de Los Monstruos/Ship of Monsters?
LV: The space ship comes and we have monsters because we go to another planet, we want to get one different person from each planet. In Saturn the men are monsters. For example I said one of them, "You're so beautiful." And you can see a monster! And in the other planet we have another man, a monster, he doesn't have a head, he has just the big brain, not hair, not nothing. I have to kiss one of them. And this is a real experience let me tell you because they were with... I don't know what they have in their mouths. They look like they are sweating, they have something in the mouth that when I kiss him, oh my god! What am I doing? But I was so young that maybe it's water or something but it looks like Jello. Like jelly or something. No this is a big experience. But let me tell you in Mexico it is a classic film. This is something that's not just for the kids. This is a picture for everybody because everybody can be happy with this. And they can laugh and they will have one hour and a half to be happy.

BA: These sci-fi films didn't have a lot of money to work with did they?
LV: They are making a film from space but they don't have money to do these things. It's a miracle. When you are in Hollywood you see all the technology that they have. We don't have money. We do it... I don't know how. This is fun. We're going to do it and we do it. It's like everything in this world you just need the idea and the know how. But when you are making a picture you think, "Maybe this is going to be a good, good picture." You never think that what you are doing is not very good. You think we are like the Americans. You think this is the best work. You never think this is so cheap and they don't have the technology. But the Mexicans are very smart about making arrangements. A Mexican is the inventor of the color TV - Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena, he created TV in color.

BA: I understand that you were also a lady wrestler in the movies?
LV: Yeah. This is almost 50 years ago. These films were very necessary in our industry. I made five pictures with a fighter. That the name is El Santo, even now they are showing those pictures in Paris. And he created El Cine de Culto, these are really something. You have to pay more to see those films than if you go to regular film. This is the truth.

BA: You made some serious films as well.
LV: Yes, for example I made a beautiful picture [El Rapto de las Sabinas] in Spain and Italy about the foundation of Rome. It was almost 200 men that wanted to found Rome but when they found it, it was so little and they needed women to make a big city so they raped, they took the women.

BA: Now you have to tell me about the costumes. They are not very practical for someone flying around in space.
LV: Well somebody uses their imagination and said I think they will wear these costumes, and they put me in it's like a bathing suit. But okay.

BA: So how do you feel about being here at the festival screening films you made decades ago?
LV: It's very nice that work that you made 40 years ago that people are looking at and have interest. It's wonderful. I like these old pictures better than the pictures from now because now it's sex, and not everybody even say hello and they are nude. They don't have good stories. But it's beautiful for me that they recognize my work.

“George, don’t be so obstinate...George, don’t be so obstinate.” George, don’t make her say it again.

Yesterday, I won yet another VHS release of the brilliant, strange, and awesome weirdo horror movie LAGACY OF SATAN! Gerard Damiano's unsung masterpiece. This time on Greek video!! :-)



And here's one that got away! :-(
The UK per-cert release.


Go ahead and read Joseph A. Ziemba's VERY cool review on "Bleeding Skull".

PS: Yes, the headline is from mr Ziemba's review.

Oh Joseph A. Ziemba, why don't you let us bathe in your poetic ravings anymore? It's been too long. Come back!!!

Bruka, Queen of Evil

Go ahead and watch the above rare trailer for what seems to be a WILD Filipino snake queen movie!! There's dwarfs, flying batmen, brick monster-men, killer snakes left and right, a creepy decapitated talking head, nudity, and the lovely Maria Gil with a head full of snakes!!!

There has been some confusion between BRUKA, QUEEN OF EVIL and another film entitled DEVIL WOMAN. Both films star the same actress (Rosemarie Gil) in the lead role, and in both films she plays a similar "snake woman" character.

This has led some fans to believe they are alternative titles for the same film. This is not correct; They are two different movies. DEVIL WOMAN was released on VHS by Something Weird Video in the States and is fairly easy to get on bootleg.

Unfortunately, it seems BRUKA, QUEEN OF EVIL is a lost film! Nobody has it!! So watch the trailer and boil your eyes out cos as of now that is all you're gonna get. :-(

At one point, I got in contact with someone who said they had a friend who had a copy of the film but I was unable to get a copy from him. Did he have a copy? Does a copy exist? Does anybody have a copy? I have no idea. If anybody out there has a copy or knows of one please get in tough. Cheers.



[Mexican lobby card for DEVIL WOMAN]

I don't know if Maria Gil became typecast in snake woman roles but the fact is she starred in several other snake films as well, altho she doesn't quite play a snake queen with a head-full of writing snakes for hair. In NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN she plays the servant of a snake woman. I haven't seen BLACK MAMBA. These films were all made in the Philippines and are from the early 1970s. Maria Gil is still active and I believe she is currently working in television.



Apart from the Mexican lobby card (which I'm happy to report I'm the proud owner of) all scans are from Fred Adelman. Thanks mate.
Edit: Oops! Actually, the MANDA/DEVIL WOMAN poster came from Mads Jensen!

Usually you're on your own in trying to find the stuff I write about but these films are so obscure and rare that I thought I'd help you out just this once (LOL). You can get DEVIL WOMAN on DVD from ZDD in the UK. And yes, it's a bootleg. ZDD is highly recommended! Go here. NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN is also available from there.

Rare ZOË TAMERLIS interview

A rare interview with Zoë Tamerlis was uploaded to YouTube recently. I'm sure I don't need to tell you Zoë Tamerlis played the lead character in Abel Ferrara's MS .45 and was in BAD LIEUTENANT which she also wrote. Thanks to Derek Steckler for posting about it on Dvdmaniacs.







MS .45 trailer:

Tove scans.

I finally got hold of proper sized scans of the upcoming Birte Tove films. It took a while to get them from the company as the AWE folks were down in Cannes at some festival or such, LOL. Hopefully it means more horror and cult stuff to come our way!

Click the scans for huge size!





[Thanks to Jan]

"Made in Hong Kong" index # list

I've begun to make a complete index list of releases from the "Made in Hong Kong" video label (UK) but I don't have all the tapes so either I'll have to wait till I get hold of them... or you write and tell me (that is if you have any of the tapes I haven't got. Obviously. LOL). The list is online over at Cinehound and you'll find it right here. If you're not a member there you can just post 'em here in the commentary box (or become a member at Cinehound, haha). Cheers.



Oh, and if anyone has a complete list of "Eastern Heroes" releases that would be VERY appreciated as well!!

Jaws of the Dragon (1976)

I watched about 15 minutes of JAWS OF THE DRAGON last night (too tired to watch it all) but already now I'm confident this is the best film I have ever watched. From any country!

There's only one guy who's reviewed it on IMDb and he wrote:

"If my VCR was broken, and one tape was stuck in it that I had to watch over and over again, this would be the tape. If you can find this movie, which you probably won't be able to, you should definitely buy it and savor every second!"

The trailer is crap and in NO way does it show the greatness of this film but here it is anyway:

I believe the main character isn't so much of a good guy, he's more a motherfucker who's hired to fuck people up (and yes that's what Clarence says in TRUE ROMANCE about the character Sonny Chiba plays in THE STREET FIGHTER but altho I've only watched 15 minutes I can say it definitely suits this guys as well, LOL).

PS: Despite whatever lame ass drivel IMDb and a handful of other sites say; This is not a Hong Kong movie but from South Korea!! Did none of those morons wonder why the cars drive in the right side of the road?? Uhh, and the film being Korean is probably also the reason why the actors look Korean and not Chinese [yes, you can tell the difference, butmunch! ;-) ;-) ;-)

PS.PS: JAWS OF THE DRAGON is almost IMPOSSIBLE to find anywhere and if you DO find a print it's bound to be a pan & scan print. Last night I discovered I have a perfect LETTERBOXED print on Danish VHS!!! Huh? How could I "discover" this film in my collection, you ask. Don't I know what I've got? Well, the thing is last year I bought three big cardboard boxes filled with rare kung fu films (and some not so rare, LOL) but I haven't really gone thru the boxes until now and guess what; there's a good handful of Filipino films and other cult movies in there as well other than "just" kung fu flicks.
Anyway, in the words of Joey from Friends: How YOU doin'? LOL.

Phantom Raiders

Apparently there's about 5 minutes of dialogue in PHANTOM RAIDERS! XD

PS: Not to be confused with another Filipino flick, the war/horror movie PHANTOM SOLDIERS.

For a review go here. And for the Filipino trash war blog go here.

I Eat Your Skin (1964)

Voodoo (interracial tribe). Zombies (with eggshell eyes). A mad scientist with a beautiful young daughter. An almost deserted island (apart from the visitors, the mad scientist, his gang, his daughter, and the zombies!!!), and a playboy who goes to the island to write a book (and escape angry & disgruntled husbands whose wives he's bonked). All in black & white and directed by Del Tenney who also did HORROR OF PARTY BEACH. It was left in the can till '71 where it was pulled out of the cellar to be shown on a double bill with I DRINK YOUR BLOOD. The cover (from Something Weird) states Leonard Maltin called it "worthless". Well, that may be but I enjoyed it heaps!!

Hmm, should I get half a kebab or a rare NAKED KILLER collector's box???

Ahhh, I just won this NAKED KILLER VHS collector's box from the UK, released in 1996 and in absolute MINT condition. I won it at the WHOOPING outrageously insane price of... 79 pence (that's $1.25!!)!!! I was the only bidder and my luck could very well have been that the seller (in the UK) was an unlikely seller as it was someone who didn't have a lot of films but mostly stuff from (I believe) their garage. I think there were, like, three HK video tapes. :-)









[You can click the scans to watch them in much bigger size but I don't suggest you do so as the pic quality is pretty crappy, sorry]

New Shaw Brothers releases from Celestial!

Everyone though Celestial were done putting out Shaw Bros films but the BIG piece of news among fans of Shaw Bros flicks is that in 2009/10 they are going to put out THESE titles:



Battle for the Republic of China (1981)
The Black Enforcer (1972)
Black Magic Part II (1976)
The Brain Stealers (1968)
Dark Semester (1968)
Deadly Angels (1977)
Enchanted Chamber (1968)
Forever Diamonds (1968)
The Gambling Syndicate (1973)
Ghosts Galore (1982)
Girl’s Diary (1975)
Hong Kong – Manila –Singapore (1965)
Hong Kong Godfather (1985)
I will finally knock you down, Dad! (1984)
Interlude on Rails (1977)
The Killer (1971)
The Killer has no Return (1997)
Killers on Wheels (1976)
Legend of Feng Hsui (1979)
Love Lock (1975)
Mad, Mad 83 (1983)
Mini-Skirt Gang (1975)
Mission Impossible (1970)
The Mysterious Lady-Killer (1977)
Na Cha and the 7 Devils (1971)
Operation Lipstick (1966)
Painted Faces (1988)
The Psychopath (1978)
The Purple Shell (1967)
Red Beard (1971)
Ripples (1969)
Sing High Sing Low (1967)
Starry is the Night (1988)
Temperament of Life (1975)
Thief of Thieves (1975)
Three Stooges go Undercover (1984)
The Villains (1972)

Needless to say everyone in the Chinese community is stoked! And me too!!! All this stuff that has been unavailable for so long! Finally we are gonna get 3 DEADLY ANGELS (starring Evelyn Kraft)!! Argh!!! I can finally chuck out my terrible bootleg (off a pan & scan, English dubbed Greek vhs)!! Woo-hoo!! And as I've mentioned about 300 times: We are finally going to get BLACK MAGIC 2. Hell, I'm gonna buy BOTH the reg. 1 release AND the HK release of this!!!

Thanks to Mads Jensen for the heads up.

Satan's Slave / Pengabdi Setan

Argh!!! Here it is... the big ass full cover for the Japanese VHS release of the Indonesian horror movie PENGABDI SETAN, known in English as Satan's Slave. It's kinda inspired by the truly amazing American horror movie PHANTASM (it's not a straight remake though). Click the cover to see its full size.

Thanks to Steve Gladwin at Cinehound for providing this. Cheers mate!

Yes, there is a DVD of SATAN'S SLAVE from BCI, HOWEVER it is a crappy, crappy DVD that not only has a black bar over a third of the picture (to cover the Japanese subtitles!! Yes, Brentwood used a Japanese video tape for their DVD release!!!!!!) but the picture also keeps disappearing in fucking pixelation hell!!! It does however have English subtitles which the Japanese video obviously doesn't (in contradiction to most other Indonesian and Filipino films on VHS in Japan SATAN'S SLAVE isn't presented in an English dubbed version but is in Indonesian).

EDIT: Chris from Cinehound mentioned to me that the original Japanese subs may have been placed in the black bar under the picture so the new black bar to cover up the subs didn't actually cover any of the picture. I haven't seen the Japanese tape and thus can't make a comparison but he could very well be right.

Birte Tove Shaw Bros covers are here!

From top: MINI-SKIRT GANG, BAMBOO HOUSE OF DOLLS, SEXY GIRLS OF DENMARK

Big in Japan

Often when I Google for obscure films from even obscurder countries I end up on the same handful of blogs. Often the Filipino, Indonesian, and otherwise backyard Asian films I try and track down are soo rare that only a few sites/blogs even make a mention of them. And sometimes I experience that a certain blog in Japan is the ONLY place to mentioned some of these rare worldweird films. If it hadn't been for that blog I might even have started to believe some of these films didn't really exist but were a (another) insane image created by my evil scientist's brain.

Now, finding films on that blog is of course cool - if just I could read the damn thing! In contrast to the Japanese blogs that link to me (as I said; big in Japan!!) that are in English this one is almost only in Japanese so most of the time all I can get is 1) Proof that a film in question exists. 2) Usually the production year. 3) And sometimes a cover scan of some über-rare VCD release from a country that existed long ago.

Going thru their old posts can make any fan of rare horror and psycotronic movies drool. How about this ones; VOYAGE OF THE DEAD (scan on the right), a Hong Kong horror movie from 1954!!! And that one is just part of a whole list of old HK horror flicks (at least I THINK they're from HK as they look Chinese and it says Hong Kong in the picture address):

1936 Midnight Vampire, 1939 The Walking Corpse, Vampires of the Haunted Mansion, The Three-Thousand-Year-Old Vampire, etc, etc.

Anyway, today, much to my delight, I discovered that now this blog ALSO links to me! Fabulous!! They/he/she also link(s) to a bunch of other sites/blogs but screw that, that's none of my concern, LOL. They discovered "Lejemorderen" and that's cool... even if I don't even know the title of the blog, haha (the address bar says "susie_arabia" so obviously I imagine it's made by a cool chick in downtown Tokyo who listens to the 5,6,7,8s and Guitar Wolf, and tracks down obscure films. But then again, sometimes these blogs are done by nerdy fat geeks who live with their mum, and whose social life is stacks of old Sarah Young tapes (but hey, it's what I always always say: EVERYTHING IS FINE IF YOU'RE HAPPY WITH IT, haha). Another good thing about this blog is they make these long lists of films so if nothing else you get an idea of how much to look for, titles, and as I said sometimes there's even a scan.

Anyhoo, whoever you are on that blog, thanks for the link!

Check out the blog here.

Turko posters

BADI; the Turkish remake of E.T. Obviously!
The Turkish title and poster for ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS

Unpublished stuff in 'Greek'

(click scan to watch it properly)

Friday Fun Trailer

...altho it's not really a trailer, LOL.

QUEEN'S HIGH (1991) (aka In The Line Of Duty: The Beginning)

Thanks to Spannick in Deutschland I'm now the very happy owner of this film (off a LD, not the VCD shown here). Ahh, Cynthia Khan. Ahh, girls 'n' guns. Ahh, Cynthia Khan and guns! :-) :-) :-)




(click scans for bigger size)

EDIT: Ahh, mi amigos de 'Bikini Machines'! Check aqui.

Saturday Night Fright Flick

Okay, so it's Wednesday so sue me, haha.

Black Magic 2 very very soon!!!

THE FIRST SCREEN GRABS ARE HERE!!!

Yes, I admit the grabs look a tad too dark but the new restored Celestial print I watched last Christmas looked much brighter so lets cross our fingers and hope it's only the preview scans and not the actual DVD which is too dark.












And finally... the absolutely ATROCIOUSLY AWFUL new cover for the film:



I REALLY REALLY don't get it!!! Why use such a terrible cover when they could have used the original:



FRED ADELMAN'S REVIEW FROM "CRITICAL CONDITION":

BLACK MAGIC 2 (1976) - I've been waiting quite a few years to get my hands on an uncut version of this film ever since I saw a chopped-up edit of it in theaters (distributed by World Northal Corp.) and on bootleg VHS under the title REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES. Now, thanks to the fine folks at Celestial Pictures, we can all see this film the way it was meant to be seen: Fully uncut and with English subtitles (replacing the horrendous English dubbing on earlier edits). The film opens with a bunch of topless women (all nudity was cut from the edited version) splashing around in a river when, all of a sudden, a huge crocodile grabs one of them and chows down on her. An elderly white-haired witch doctor hangs a live chicken on a hook above the river and begins chanting. The crocodile grabs the chicken and becomes hooked, as the witch doctor pulls it to shore and stabs it in the eyes, finishing the crocodile off by gutting it and pulling the contents out of it's stomach, which includes a tin can, a sandal and the unfortunate dead girl's bracelet, which he hands over to her family. We then switch to two professional city couples, who take a trip to "a tropical city" to research spells and to discover if they have any validity in modern society. Something tells me that they're not going to like what they uncover. They stop at a nightclub (a disco band plays a funky tune while a girl in a sequined bikini dances on-stage), where we watch an evil black magician (Lo Lieh; THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER - 1974) bring a beautiful woman back to his mansion, leads her into a secret room, strips her naked and then reveals that she has a giant spike embedded in the top of her skull! He slowly pulls the spike out with a pair of pliers and the beautiful girl rapidly turns into a decaying corpse. The two couples, the male members both being doctors, visit a hospital where the patients have strange skin ulcers, all said to have been caused by spells, especially the dreaded "Green Venom Poison Spell", which causes lesions that look like human faces. The black magician becomes smitten with Margaret (Tanny; HUMAN LANTERNS - 1982), the wife of one of the doctors, and puts a spell on her by stealing a drop of her blood, hanging a dead cat in her yard and pouring a potion made from her blood on one of his huge collections of wax effigies. Margaret's husband, Zhensheng (Ti Lung; 10 TIGERS OF KWANG TUNG - 1980), becomes worried for his wife's health and safety when she disappears each night. She is under the control of the black magician, who creates a potion using her freshly-shaven pubic hair (!), to make Margaret produce breast milk, which he will drink every night to keep his youthful appearance. Every night, Margaret sleepwalks to his mansion, where he sucks on her titties and then makes love to her (including some backdoor action!). When Zhensheng finally catches on to Margaret's nocturnal visits, he also discovers that she is suddenly nine months pregnant! She has an emergency c-section, where a mutated stillborn baby is delivered. Folks, this is only the first thirty minutes of the film. What comes next is truly beyond proper description and is best witnessed first hand. This is another weird and entertaining Shaw Brothers production, directed by demented genius Ho Meng-Hua (credited as "Horace Mengwa" on the abortive English language prints), who also directed the original BLACK MAGIC (1975; which stars many of the same actors here, but in different roles), as well as THE OILY MANIAC (1976), THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN (1977; a.k.a. GOLIATHON) and THE RAPE AFTER (1986). The screenplay, by I Kuang (THE KILLER SNAKES - 1974), gets increasingly more bizarre as the film progresses, as we watch the black magician (whose name is revealed as Kang Cong!) perform his various spells (usually love spells for some poor schmucks that invariably go very, very wrong) obtaining blood or a personal item from his victims, which he uses to make potions to pour over his wax dolls or on the many dead, rotting corpses he keeps in the basement of his mansion. He then hammers a giant spike into the tops of their heads and, presto!, instant zombie with a youthful appearance. There's so much more insanity on view, including grave robbing, dead cat whipping, breast milk squirting, stop-motion disintegrations, skin lesions containing slimy worms and a zombie attack in the finale that is as surreal as it is horrific. There's also the prerequisite battle between the good magician (the white-haired witch doctor from the beginning of the film) and the black magician, where the black magician drives giant nails into his own cheeks and hands while the good magician rips out his own eyes and gives them to the hero for protection! I won't even mention the fight on a moving tram car that offers some of the chintziest blue screen work in recent memory. There's also tons of nudity and sex on view, all of it missing from the English language version; so much so, that it plays like an entirely different film. This is twisted horror in the best sense and gets my highest recommendation. A second in-name-only sequel, the Indonesian QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC (1979), followed. Also starring Liu Hui-Ju, Lily Li, Lin Wei-Tu, Frankie Wei and Yang Ai-Hua. A Celestial Pictures DVD Release in a beautiful widescreen print. Not Rated.

Jack:
As always a warm thank you to Fred for letting me use his reviews as I wish. Thanks.

The screen grabs are courtesy of Ian Jane of Dvdmaniacs.