The Japanese mess that is the DEMONS sequels

Here's a list of the Japanese VHS "sequels" to the first two Italian DEMONS films, DEMONS and DEMONS 2. Needless to say, they're sequels in name only.


DEMONS 3: LA CHIESA/The Church (Michele Soavi)

DEMONS 4: LA SETTA/The Sect/The Devil's Daugther (Michele Soavi)

DEMONS 5: MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO (the LAMBERTO Bava film!)

Demons 6: IL GATTO NERO (Luigi Cozzi)

DEMONS '95: DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE

DEMONS 2009: THE DEATH FACTORY


Notice:
Tread carefully when you walk on that ice-thin surface that is the IMDb. A lot (A LOT!!) of their info is obviously written by monkeys that have been taught computer skills.
No, the Japanese title for IL GATTO NERO isn't Demons 6: Armagedon on the video cover, it's Demons 6: De Profundis. And no, MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO has certainly never been released ANYWHERE as "Black Sunday". Someone who obviously ought to be on strong medication "cleverly" figured that since it's the alternative title for MARIO Bava's film MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO it would probably also be the alternative title for the LAMBERTO Bava film of the same Italian title. Of course it's not! DUH!!!


Thanks to Jayson of Basement of Ghoulish Decadence for some of the info.

Best ever pop song on a Tuesday

Gee, it's been almost 30 years since I last saw these two DIE KRUPPS videos!! Check them both out! I thought they would have thrown in the towel a long time ago but today I got an email from Kulturbolaget information saying they'll be playing (with Nitzer Ebb) in Malmø in April.

As the girl said to the soldier...

Here's a sound test from 1929 for Alfred Hitchcock's BLACKMAIL. Hitchcock is being his old cheeky self and the babe is Anny Ondra who played the lead in the film.

Ondra was from Czechoslovakia and spoke English well but had an accent so in the film she was dubbed by someone else. Or should I say in the talkie version of the film she was dubbed!

BLACKMAIL was originally prepared as a silent movie but this was shortly after the invention of the talking film (1927) so the studio decided to make it a talking picture instead. However, since many theatres still hadn't bought equipment to play sound films with the film was released as both a silent and a talkie.

I haven't watched either of the two (but needless to say I want to) but various web sites state the original silent version is the better film. Both versions are available on DVD (in Germany and Spain). Check the two clips underneath; they're of the same same scene but from the two different versions. They both contain quite a bit of footage not found in the other edit.

Film wise I prefer the silent version but music wise I prefer the sound version. The cling-clong music in the silent one rips my nerves to threads! It's juuust terrible if you ask me. However, the damn birds in the sound version are a pain too. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't watch this film after all. :/ LOL.

And Anny Ondra is so cute! :D

It's suddenly a sad, sad, sad day. :-(

Tura Satana has passed away. For the official website go here.



Tura in action in the film that John Waters called "the best film ever made". Yeah, I agree. And Tura was the coolest chick ever in that film. RIP.

More Something Weird goodies

I'm getting a couple more DVDs from Something Weird Video in the US; the first one is the Filipino flick WONDER WOMEN from 1973.

Karate-chopping sex kittens! Organ transplants! Zombie sex slaves! Monster Mutants! Go-go boots! SID HAIG! Wonder Women! Yup, here's one of our Philippine faves, a wild and sexy shot-in-Manila grindhouse gem from the Seventies that plays like a live-action sci-fi comic book complete with a title that should've been a disco hit.

Fourteen of the world's top male athletes are shot with hypos, stuffed into coffins, and shipped to the Philippines by the lethal Linda (MARIA ARAGON, also in Love Me Like I Do, who should've had a bigger career than she did), and her beautiful-but deadly glamour girls -- who trade their mini-skirts for mourning attire in order to accompany the "bodies." When one of their targets is a famous jai-alai player with a hefty insurance policy, Lloyds of London hires ex-cop, ex-CIA, and all-around-tough-guy-stud Mike Harber (ROSS HAGEN, who also produced ) to investigate. With the aid of giggling cab driver VIC DIAZ (who's apparently in every Filipino film made in the Seventies), "the indestructible Mr. Harber" battles Won Ton Charlie's motorcycle assassins, then is seduced by Linda who kicks the crap out of him in his hotel room before the violence spills out into the streets of Manila where passerby stare, get startled, and even chase after her!

Mike eventually arrives at the island fortress of Dr. Tsu (NANCY KWAN, a looooong way from Flower Drum Song and The World Of Suzie Wong), a Su-Muru-style mad scientist "a hundred years ahead of her time," who's selling black-market organs and protected by an all-girl army. The missing athletes are there too, in comas and garbed in Saran Wrap, where they're used as unwilling organ donors and as sex robots fo Linda and her squad of killer cuties. Also on hand is Tsu's happy-go-lucky business partner Gregorious (the great Sid Haig of Spider Baby); a millionaire geezer eager to have his old brain put into "the body of a healthy, young, virile, athlete"; and a handful of hilarious motley monsters dubbed "Dr. Tsu's Freaks" which include a former basketball player whose exposed brain has a flashing light atop it. But the operation on the old coot goes bad, Linda is scheduled for "a complete dissection," and the monsters go on a killing spree...

Plus: brief titty; slow-motion cockfights; a killer kid; two quick cameos by MARILYN JOI; big bald BRUNO PUNSALAN (a fixture in Blood Island films); Dr. Tsu's "brain sex" machine; and the classic line: "Hands off, bitch, he's mine!"

Similar in many ways to Franco's equally goofy The Girl From Rio -- there's obviously more than one futuristic city populated entirely by shapely young centerfolds -- Wonder Women isn't exactly the sort of tongue-in-cheek entertainment one expects from ROBERT VINCENT O'NEIL, the director of such grim sex-noirs as The Psycho Lover and Blood Mania. In fact, Wonder Women is so fast, funny, and fetishistic, you'll barely notice it's rated PG>
From a 35mm print pumped full of anti rejection serum.
-- Cadet Happy



Product Details

SKU: 3298
Weight: 0.25 lbs
Format: DVD-R
Year: 1973
Color: Color
Starring: Nancy Kwan
Co-starring: Ross Hagen
Other cast: Maria de Aragon, Sid Haig, Vic Diaz
Directed by: Robert Vincent O'Neil
Produced by: Untamed Video

- and the second one is COPENHAGEN CALL-GIRLS aka Villa Vennely which I've wanted to get for ages! The problem is it's pretty difficult to order film thru their site as SWV don't accept credit-card payment from outside of the US. Anyway, I'm getting it now and woo-hoo for that! My friend Kristian R, who's a second generation Dane in the US, tells me SWV's 35mm print looks better than the old Danish ex-rental tape. One site wrongly stated the SWV print is dubbed into English. This isn't true at all, the print is in Danish and carries the old, original English language cinema subs.

What a strange little number this one is. Made during the days when Copenhagen was synonymous with sexual liberation, Copenhagen Call Girls (aka Villa Vennely: Home of Copenhagen Call Girls and Call Girls of Copenhagen) exudes a bizarre, almost exotic, mixture of grimy black & white sexploitation and Benny Hill-style humor. Much of the action takes place at the Villa Vennely, a good old-fashioned house of ill-repute (which, despite its grandiose-sounding name, is really little more than a house). Apart from working there, the girls also make the Villa their home, with every need tended to by the clumsy, overweight butler Basse, who washes (and buys) their underwear, falls off the roof while trying to fix the television antenna, and keeps his booze hidden inside the vacuum cleaner (!). He also delivers a tall, fresh glass of “white poison” to the girls each morning: milk with a dash of speed added to ensure the girls are adequately energized for the day’s activities (“We can’t have you getting lazy!”). Although the groovy-looking Harry appears to be in control of the place, it’s really his overbearing mother who rules the roost, bellowing commands on the phone to her son and accusing the employees of dipping their fingers into the profits. At night, the Villa comes alive with seedy activity as all the regulars pile in looking for some relief after a hard day at the office. Apart from the obvious female company, the clients of Villa Vennely also indulge in some dancing, stag-movie watching, and poker playing (some shady card dealing allows Harry to win back all his drug-buying money). In order to beef up the threadbare storyline, director/co-writer POUL NYRUP (who also helmed Days of Sin and Nights of Nymphomania in 1963) throws a couple of sub plots into the stew, including one about a working girl who’s strung out on pills, and a surprisingly genuine plea for the legalization of prostitution. But the highlight of Copenhagen Call Girls is without a doubt the groovy, inspired surf-guitar score provided by an obscure group of Beatles-wannabes calling themselves THE SHARKS who appear as themselves in one scene, playing to a crowd of about ten at a restaurant called the Moulin Rouge and mugging maniacally for the camera. Almost running non-stop throughout the length of the film, the music sounds so Californian and seems so out of place -- especially on this original Dutch-language print which comes with English subtitles -- that, within the context of this crazy piece of softcore skin, it actually seems to make sense. (It would also make a very cool CD!) From a 35mm on-their-backs print. #3823 -- John Harrison, The Graveyard Tramp


Product Details

SKU: 3823
Weight: 0.20 lbs
Format: DVD-R
Year: 1966
Color: B&W
Starring: Finn Anderson
Co-starring: Caren Birgith
Other cast: erik Chris
Directed by: Paul Nyrop

Obviously, the print isn't in "Dutch" but Danish and "Paul Nyrop" is really called Poul Nyrup. And the film is from 1964, not '66. :D

The Wasp Woman - the director's cut

I ordered Roger Corman's THE WASP WOMAN last night. The version I'm getting is from Something Weird Video and this should be interesting! Now, there are a whole bucketful of different releases out there but according to the info on their site all other versions are of the TV print which has extra footage to make the film longer. This 35mm print is Corman's the original cinema version, i.e. the director's cut.

Here’s a surprisingly rare version of an otherwise commonly available title. Contradiction? Nope, because virtually all other copies of The Wasp Woman are from 16mm TV prints with footage added to pad out its relatively short running time. This, however, is the original theatrical version – from a crisp 35mm print – which is, essentially, ROGER CORMAN’s director’s cut.

Though Janice Starling founded a multi-million dollar cosmetics firm on her youthful looks, she’s now 40 years old and showing her age: “Not even Janice Starling can remain a glamour girl forever.” At least not until an odd little scientist named Professor Zinthrop shows up claiming that he can restore her youth and “stimulate the process of rejuvenation through the use of enzymes extracted from wasps.” Sterling’s staff think Dr. Z’s a quack, but after Janice sees what the doc’s formula does to guinea pigs, she tells him that “Janice Starling will be your next guinea pig!” However, in an effort to speed up the process, Janice sneaks into the doc’s lab at night and injects herself with extra doses of the wasp formula. Virtually overnight she looks like she’s 22 again. Unfortunately, she also periodically buzzes around the office sporting an insect head and fuzzy hands on her otherwise sexy body, killing and, apparently, eating her staff....

The first film Corman directed for The Filmgroup, his pre-New World distribution company, The Wasp Woman is a typically cheap but nonetheless enjoyably goofy Fifties-style B-monster movie, originally double-billed with The Beast from Haunted Cave back in ’59. Corman has produced so much direct-to-video dreck in recent years that one almost forgets what an intelligent director he was and how good even his most thread-bare quickies are. The Wasp Woman may be predictable and, plotwise, downright dumb, but it’s nevertheless sure fun to sit through. Corman was also smart enough to populate his casts with good and interesting actors, and The Wasp Woman has a bunch of them, including the underrated BARBOURA MORRIS (The Trip’s lady in the laundromat) as Janice’s secretary; The Mighty Gorga’s ANTHONY EISLEY (back when he was billed as “Fred”) as the nominal hero; FRANK GERSTLE (Monstrosity) as a private eye; a bit by BRUNO VE SOTA (Daughter of Horror) as a doomed nightwatchman; and cameos by MARK WOLFF (The Lickerish Quartet) who delivers a mattress; and Roger himself as a doctor.

But what really makes The Wasp Woman work is the great SUSAN CABOT -- veteran of such Corman mini-epics as Sorority Girl (’57), Carnival Rock, The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, Machine Gun Kelly, and War of the Satellites (all ’58) – equally believable as both the 22 and 40-year-old Janice. As talented as she was short, Miss Cabot retired from acting soon after The Wasp Woman was released, but made tragic headlines in 1986 when she was bludgeoned to death by her son, Timothy. In a gruesome bit of irony, he blamed the killing on an experimental hormone he was taking.... -- Watson Pritchard



Product Details

SKU: 34846
Weight: 0.25 lbs
Format: DVD-R
Year: 1959
Color: B&W
Starring: Susan Cabot
Co-starring: Anthony Eisley
Other cast: Barboura Morris, William Roerick
Directed by: Roger Corman

Come to papa my li'l silver angels...

Ahhhh, check dis baby out! I finally won this Taiwan beauty!! It's Cheung Chi-Chiu's DEADLY SILVER ANGELS from 1984. There's NO dvd release of this film. It's out on an English dubbed fullscreen video somewhere (in the US I think), I already have a DVD-R of that version from some bootlegger. HOWEVER, this Japanese VHS presents the film in it's original, complete letterboxed format! Arrrrhh, sooo good. I've tried to get hold of this tape for a long time but I've only seen it on eBay once before (in 2009). At that auction I placed 60 bucks on it, leaned back and whispered "mine". Yeah, well, it went for 166 dollars. O_O If the person who won it back then is reading this I'm sure he'll be happy on my behalf; I was the only bidder and so I got it at the starting bid, $41 (or maybe he won't be so jolly, LOL). Well, that's how it is at auctions, what goes for big bucks today might go for a lot less tomorrow, and visa-versa. Check the YouTube clip from the film below. I believe it's from the same Japanese VHS version.

The Midnite Movies that became... ordinary. O_O

Wauw, what a fucking discovery! It's just dawned on me that out of the 116 single titles in MGM's Midnite Movies line four of them were VHS only releases! [check the complete list here] When MGM released them on DVD they changed the covers to ordinary MGM covers. I have absolutely no idea as to why they did that! The four titles are PAJAMA PARTY, FROGS, BURN WITCH BURN, and A BUCKET OF BLOOD. So if you've been looking for those on DVD there's your reason as to why you still haven't found them. LOL. Such informative and important information you get on this blog, ay! Yeah!! Now we can finally go and live happy lives like real people again (I'm sure this has been bugging you for years!).




PS: and I just ordered the DVD version of FROGS from Amazon UK. The DVD was £1.15!!! That's just under two dollars. The postage was slightly more expensive than the DVD, haha. I already have the film on an old video tape. It's such a horror masterpiece. xD


And one more that I missed initially as it's not on my original list at all! Thanks to Jayson for the info:

ZUMA 2: HELL SERPENT (aka Anak Ni Zuma) - ultra rare English dubbed clip

This is a an uber rare English dubbed scene from the Filipino horror movie ZUMA 2: HELL SERPENT (original title: Anak Ni Zuma) which is a sequel to ZUMA. A version in Tagalog language exists on Filipino VCD but this English dubbed print is very obscure. And until someone recently sent me a link to this clip on a RUSSIAN page I wouldn't even have guessed it had been dubbed as I have never come across or heard of an English friendly version. The subtitles are in Chinese and (I believe) Indonesian but I have absolutely no info on where this was released. Maybe on VHS in Malaysia.

If any of you have this English dubbed print please get in touch! (I don't need the Tagalog version as I've already got the Filipino VCD, thanks).



[Filipino VCD/in Tagalog/no subs]

English text on the VCD cover although the film is in Tagalog and doesn't have English subtitles.

UK dvd buyers no longer getting fucked in the ass? Think again, puta!!!

No more severe censorship cuts on UK DVDs? Pffft!

One of the telly shows that I watched religiously when it was broadcast in the early 80s was HILL STREET BLUES.

HILL STREET was a cop show that diverted from most of the 1970s cop shows in that it wasn't about only one main character like Kojak or Columbo but it revolved around a whole police precinct. I don't know if HILL STREET BLUES was the first of its kind but I'm sure that at least due to its popularity it paved the way for the many shows of that kind. All the stuff that we see today should get down on their knees and kiss HILL STREET BLUES' dirty feet.

I haven't actually re-watched HILL STREET since it aired here in the 80s. It's was rerun on a different channel in the early 90s but I didn't watch it cos, well, I guess I was watching something else, LOL (probably some splatter movie as it was about the time when I first got into reviewing gore flicks for fanzines).

Anyhoo, the other day I caught an episode of the show on a local channel which I don't usually watch, and you know how it goes I immediately figured "Oh man I gotta get the entire series right now and watch again... right now", haha. I found two different releases on Amazon UK; a local UK five disc release containing the complete season 1, and a reg. 1 set also containing the complete first season but all squeezed down on only three discs.

Needless to say, I figured the five disc release would be better than the three disc one. Well, bad assumption, cabron!! Fortunately, I took some time and read the user comments on Amazon UK and it appears the video company is royally fucking the British HILL STREET fans up the ass cos the episodes are edited editions (i.e. censored!!!) for day time broadcast before the watershed!!! (i.e. 9pm in the UK). Can you believe that!!

And when you investigate a little further it becomes even more surreal as you learn these censored DVD aren't even the result of the evil deeds committed by the BBFC; It's simply the TV station Channel 4 who is to blame. Oh, and you think it can't get any more obscure? Think again! One of the Amazon customers commented that he wrote to C4 and complained about it but they replied it wasn't their fault! [insert sound file of hysteric, insane laughter] So who is to blame? The video company? No can do! C4 put out the DVD set themselves.

And a few customers mentioned they bought previous VHS editions that were uncut. My guess is this is a fucken slip up that C4 just won't face up to. C4 probably thought it would be easier to release their own broadcast versions on DVD than to get the new versions from the US. Too bad for PAL buyers.

Carol Windsor:
I was so pleased to be able to get it on DVD, however, I was disappointed to find out it is the Hill Street for Babies censored version. Series 2 is even worse. The editing looks like a complete hatchet job - extremely obvious with interrupted flow of action.

"But NOW it can't get any worse... right? Wrong! The SAME applies for the UK edition of the second season:

Mr. T Slader:
I gave season two a chance but it was as badly cut as season one. I have old video copies of several season 1 & 2 episodes that are uncut so I know that they have been butchered.

Jon Clark:
After settling down for a serious couch-fest of memories with these DVD's it was quickly apparent something was missing. Scenes weren't making sense. Edits were skipping around. Events were being referenced that the viewer hadn't seen.

I checked the info on the reg. 1 sets and, lo and behold, they're not only fully uncut but the Americans actually put the series on double sided DVDs which means you get the episodes on six sides, not three (but I have no idea if three double sided DVDs are better than five single sided DVDs or not?). And the reg. 1 sets are even a couple pounds cheaper than the UK discs! I ordered them both right away.

Unfortunately, those two season are the only ones that got released. It seems they didn't sell very well (they came out in 2006) and the remaining five seasons were most likely scrapped. As I said, they're being broadcast on a local channel here but, uhhh, trying to tape full seasons is something I left behind with the video days - I taped most of The X-Files and every Millennium episode and Married... With Children, and, and, and... so many TV series! In the end I just gave it all op when video labels began to release all this stuff on DVD. Haha.