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.