THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1983) - One look at the title and you know what film this Italian/Turkish co-production is paying "homage" to. Rick Spear (the late David Warbeck), a globe-trotting adventurer and cat burglar, and his main squeeze Carol (Susie Sudlow) travel to Turkey on a business trip where Rick breaks into the mansion of Lord Dean (John Steiner), a crippled billionaire, and steals an ancient tablet that is a key to untold riches. He is caught, but it was all a test by Lord Dean. He hires Rick to locate and steal the Sceptor of Gilgamesh, located in the hidden Temple of the Sun God, somewhere in the Turkish desert. The sceptor is said to contain magical powers that will bring riches and good fortune to whomever possesses it. Rick has competition for the sceptor from Prince Abdullah (Aytekin Akkaya) and he has his inept men try to kidnap Carol, but Rick saves the day (with a well-aimed water hose). As Abdullah's bumbling goons try to stop him (they can't seem to do anything right), Rick begins a perilous journey through the desert with alcoholic tour guide Beetle (Alan Collins) and new sidekick Mohammed (Ricardo Palacios). Traveling by helicopter, they land at a mountain range that looks like a giant swastika. With Abdullah's men dogging their every move and Lord Dean revealing his ultimate secret, Rick and his team must maneuver a series of ancient boobytraps, including rats, snakes, a giant rolling stone wheel, lava and a sand and pulley puzzle (that nearly kills Rick) before they can get near the sceptor. Abdullah takes command before Rick can get his hands on the sceptor and he triggers one last boobytrap that brings down the whole temple.  Director Antonio Margheriti (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE - 1980), here using his "Anthony M. Dawson" pseudonym, never saw a bandwagon that he didn't jump on and he was one of the best at churning out entertaining retreads. This film, along with HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA (filmed back-to-back with this one, using many of the same actors), are rip-offs of Steven Spienberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and ARK OF THE SUN GOD is good fun in it's own low-budget way. When Rick runs into more trouble than he anticipated, he turns to Lord Dean and says. "I didn't know Roger Moore would be needed!" There's also an outlandish car chase in the desert (using Firebirds and Camaros) that comes out of nowhere, gun fights, explosions, a sword fight and lots of humor. Not particularly bloody (it would probably have earned a PG if submitted to the MPAA) and no nudity at all, this film is an enjoyable fantasy/adventure that can be viewed by both children and adults. Just don't set your sights too high and you should have a good time. This is part of VideoAsia/Ventura Distribution's TALES OF VOODOO series (Volume 4) and, for once, these thieving pirates offer a halfway decent widescreen print of the film which the DVD sleeve renames as TEMPLE OF HELL. Thankfully, the print retains it's original title. Trans World Entertainment offered a fullscreen print on VHS in the SP mode and Interglobal Home Video offered the same print in the EP speed. Also starring Anthony Berner and Suleyman Turhan. A VideoAsia/Ventura Distribution Release. Not Rated.

BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS (1973) - Stupid, but bloody, Italian-made sword and sandal fantasy about a tribe of female warriors who look at men as nothing but slaves or vessels only good for their "seed" (One Amazon says, "The male of the species is the most inferior creature on Earth!"). When one of their own is caught making love to Zeno (Lincoln Tate), they take him prisoner (after he cuts an Amazon's arm off in a sword fight) and make him a slave and then hang his lover upside down over a pit of sharpened stakes and set the rope on fire. She eventually falls and gets impaled multiple times. Zeno escapes (by putting a poisonous scorpion down the back of an Amazon, killing her) and meets kindly Valeria (Paola Tedescu) in the woods. After she tends to Zeno's wounds, he tells her that if she should ever need his help, he and his people will be there for her. That time will come all to soon. When Antiope (Gena Woods), the Queen of the Amazons, attacks Valeria's village with her warriors, killing Valeria's father and many of the women and older men, while kidnapping many of the young men as slaves (A few moments earlier, we witness the Amazons kill all their previous slaves in a mass slaughter to make room for the new ones!), Valeria travels to Zeno's village to ask for help. After making a deal with Zeno and three of his best warriors (She says, "Three sacks of crushed oats, ten panther skins, ten bear skins, five hogs and a measure of gold, but that's it!"), they go back to Valeria's village and begin training the villagers for combat. It's going to be an uphill battle, since the villagers are nothing but simple farmers. The Amazons, meanwhile, are busy having orgies with their new slaves (and each other) and planning their next attack on Valeria's village. Unbeknownst to Valeria and Zeno, Antiope has a spy in their village. When Valeria, Zeno and his men pull a surprise raid on the Amazon's slave camp, freeing all the slaves, Valeria's wannabe-suitor Erno (Benito Stefanelli), who is jealous of Zeno, turns traitor and goes to the Amazon's village to tell Antiope of Zeno's plans, only to learn of the spy and lose his life (by double spear impalement). When the Amazons attack Valeria's village in the finale, we learn the identity of the spy and Zeno and his men face-off against Antiope and her Amazons, with an able assist from Valeria and her female warriors.  This nonsensical fantasy owes a debt of gratitude to THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960; which itself owes a debt to THE SEVEN SAMURAI - 1954), since the plot bears more than a passing glance to that film (Bruno Corbucci was one of the scripters here). Director Alfonso Brescia (using his frequent "Al Bradley" pseudonym), who also gave us the similarly stupid SUPER STOOGES VS. THE WONDER WOMEN (1975) and the awful STAR WARS knock-off STAR ODYSSEY (1979), fills the screen with nudity and violence, including rape, orgies (both straight and lesbian), impalements (by spears, swords and spikes), dismemberments and hand-to-hand combat (including some hilarious gladiatorial martial arts). It's quite apparent in the final face-off between the Amazons and Valeria's village that many of the masked Amazons are actually men in wigs (the arms don't lie). If you like plenty of trampoline action (who doesn't?), topless women (count me in!) and head-shaking dialogue ("You interrupted my dance of love!" and "This world was made for hate, not love!"), you could do a lot worse than this mindless Italian fantasy. It's like on of those 60's Hercules peplum films, with added copious nudity and gore. Also starring Lucretia Love, Mirta Miller, Solvay Stubing, Francesco (Frank) Brana, Pilar Clement, Riccardo Pizzuti and Robert Vidmark. Never legally available on home video in the United States (it was released theatrically by American International Pictures), it can be purchased on an All Region DVD from Eurovista Digital Entertainment. It's a pretty beat-up widescreen print (lots of emulsion scratches and missing frames, just like their release of THE DEAD ARE ALIVE), but watchable. Rated R.

BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA (1983) - It's time once again for another crazy-assed Hong Kong fantasy horror film. In Papau, New Guinea, black magician Master Abdullah leads Ben (Chen Kuan Tai) through the jungle until they get to a cave. Inside the cave is a coffin containing a mummy, which Master Abdullah instructs Ben to stab in the heart with a sacrificial dagger. The mummy suddenly springs to life, but Master Abdullah cuts off it's head, performs a spell on it's skull (which involves Abdullah shooting laser beams from his fingertips!), splits the skull open and puts the mummy's pulsating brain in a box. He gives Ben the box and tells him that he can make one wish whenever he wants, but after he makes that wish, he must immediately sprinkle holy water (which he also supplies Ben), on the brain so the brain can find peace in the hereafter. If he doesn't, the wish could come back to bite Ben in the ass (I think we can all see where this is heading). Ben heads back to Hong Kong (Abdullah perishes in the cave when it catches on fire and boulders crush him to death!), where he is greeted by his fiancée Annie (Candy Yu) at the airport and makes the discovery that the brain can become invisible (a Customs agent asks to see what's in the box and when he opens it, the brain has disappeared). Ben has returned to marry Annie, but her elderly, hospitalized father objects to the marriage, as does Annie's brother Kit. Ben uses the brain to wish for a million dollars to impress Kit and Annie's father, but when the money doesn't come quickly enough, he asks his sister for a loan and she turns him down. Angry, he storms out of the house after wishing his sister would "go to Hell" and goes to a bar to drown his sorrows, not realizing that his latest wish is about to come true. While Ben is getting drunk as a skunk, his sister is attacked by supernatural forces, tossed off a balcony and, finally, thrown through a window and dies. Ben inherits one million dollars thanks to the death of his sister, but instead of following Master Abdullah's advice and using the holy water on the brain, he grows greedy and demands more wishes. As you can probably guess, things are about to turn bad for Ben and those around him. Ben wishes to marry Annie and suddenly her father changes his mind and gives his blessing. The wedding ceremony is a huge affair, but when Kit insults Ben at the reception, Ben storms off in a huff. That night, Ben takes a shower in his palatial new home and the water turns to blood. Annie spots the brain crawling up a window and screams, stepping on a dead monkey while running away! Ben pleads for the brain to leave them alone, but the brain will have none of that nonsense. The next morning, their maid finds a corpse of a dog missing it's brain at the front door. Folks, all this happens within the first thirty minutes of the film and what come next is even crazier, as Ben gets deeper in dutch with the brain. Ben wishes for the deaths of Kit and Annie's father so he can take over the family business, but when a nosy Annie accidentally breaks the bottle of holy water (which should have been used on the brain long before this), the brain goes totally berserk and no one is safe. Is there any way to put the genie back in the bottle before it is too late? Perhaps a sorcerer could help...  Filled with many strange sights and off-the-wall deaths, BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA, directed by popular Chinese actor/filmmaker Lo Lieh (5 FINGERS OF DEATH - 1972; BLACK MAGIC - 1975; and hundreds of others; he appears as the sorcerer here) and written by Chiu Chi Kin, is a treat for fans of Hong Kong fantasy horror. This is a slight reworking of The Monkey's Paw, where the moral of the story is to be careful what you wish for because wishes never have a way of turning out how you hope they will. Half the fun here is watching the pulsating brain (a very cheap bladder effect, but strangely compelling nonetheless) doing its dirty work, whether it's crawling into Kit's bubble bath and killing him or slithering along the ground, walls and windows (while the sound of heaving breathing is heard on the soundtrack [which is strange in itself because the brain doesn't have lungs!]), as it attaches itself to people's bodies, sucking out their brains while pleading "Let me go!" (strange again, since it has no lips or tongue, not to mention a voice box!). All the brain wants is to be returned to the hereafter so it can be at peace, but the stupid humans keep trying to use it for their own gain. The latter part of the film is a complete hoot, as Ben tries to get rid of the brain any way he can; by burying it, crushing it under a boulder and setting it on fire, but time and time again the brain returns to terrorize him. On one such occasion, the brain covers the windshield of Ben's car in blood, forcing Ben to lose control of the car and run into the sorcerer, who loses his pants, but is otherwise unharmed! This sets up the film's wild finale, where the sorcerer performs an exorcism to rid Ben of the brain (but not before he gives Ben a good ass-kicking just for the hell of it!). Ben ends up vomiting the brain in little pieces, but the brain makes itself whole again (thanks to some reverse camerawork and stop-motion effects) and what comes next is a truly exceptional example of cinema of the bizarre. I won't spoil it for everyone by giving it away, but it involves a statue of Buddha coming to life, the brain growing to gigantic proportions and the film turning into a bastardized version of THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN (1976). I don't know what was in the water in Hong Kong during the 70's & 80's, but they turned out scores of these weird and wild films that puts anything made in the U.S. during the same period look timid in comparison. BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA is a great example of this. Also known as BLACK MAGIC WITH BUTCHERY and EVIL BRAIN. Also starring Elaine Kin, Chau Sing and Man Yu Wu. Available on VHS & DVD from Tai Seng Entertainment in a hilariously English-subtitled fullscreen print. Not Rated.

THE BLIND WARRIOR (1985) - Another outrageous Indonesian fantasy from director Ratno Timoer, who previously gave us the unbelievable THE DEVIL'S SWORD (1984) and the unclassifiable REVENGE OF NINJA (1984). The film opens with an entire village being slaughtered when they won't give up the location of their ancestor's treasure. Enter blind warrior Barda (Advent Bangun; who looks to be wearing an outfit made from the skin of the Creature from the Black Lagoon!) and his pet monkey (who really serves no purpose in this film), as they walk through the village littered with the bodies of dead men, women and children and he makes a remark about man's inhumanity to man. We then cut to the village ruled by the evil Raden Parda, who is holding a huge ritual where the entire village prays to their god (a huge stone statue with red glowing eyes) and sacrifice a virgin to him. Unbeknownst to most of the villagers, when the virgin walks into the crotch of the statue, she is actually walking into Parna's private bedroom, where we see him make love to the virgin while miniature pink, white and red styrofoam balls fall around and nearly engulf them! When Parna sends his men to capture virgin village girl Sirimbi (Enny Beatrice), Barda steps in and defeats nearly a dozen of Parna's men (When they report back to their boss that they were beaten-up by a blind man, Parna says, "Godamned idiots! Are you telling me you can't even catch a blind man? Maybe I should have all of you blinded, huh? You bunch of idiots!"). Barda becomes the protector of Sirimbi's family (Her father says, "We all hate Raden Parna. He's got to be the forerunner of Satan!") and as he listens to Parna's men torture and kill some slaves that work in his gold mine (We see them kill a young boy by slashing his chest open with a sword and kill another man by impaling him with a spear), he vows to bring Parna down. While Barda is with Sirimbi's father, Parna's men capture Sirimbi and her hot-headed brother Yagi (Harry Capri). Barda steps in and creates a diversion where he throws a huge boulder in the air and shatters it by hurling his staff in it's direction. He then picks up Sirimbi and Yagi and flies away with them in his arms! Needless to say, Parna is pissed (He says to his head henchman, "Perhaps I should just pluck your eyes out of your stupid head! Because they're of no use to you, are they?"), so he travels to Sirimbi's village in his golden eagle chariot and offers to make Sirimbi his queen if she will marry him. She refuses and Barda challenges Parna to a magical duel. Then the shit really hits the fan. Since what I just described to you takes place during the first 35 minutes of the film, you can expect much more lunacy in the remaining 50 minutes!  As with all Indonesian fantasies, such as THE WARRIOR series (THE WARRIOR 2, also known as THE WARRIOR AGAINST THE BLIND SWORDSMAN, starred Advent Bangun playing basically the same character he does here, even if he uses a different name and carries a bigger staff in that film), it doesn't make much sense but, Jesus Christ, it's entertaining as hell. Filled with colorful characters (including a bad guy working at the mine with an unusual patch of chest hair that I just couldn't take my eyes off of!), outrageous set-pieces and some of the funniest dubbed dialogue this side of an Arizal film, THE BLIND WARRIOR is something every Indonesian fantasy fan should search out. The final 30 minutes is some of the most off-the-wall stuff you will ever see. Barda's battle with a flaming rag, his descent into the "Hole In Hell" (Parna's head henchman says to him, "It's a shame you're blind. If you were able to see, then you would die of horror!"), where he fights a bunch of decaying zombie women and Yagi and the rebel's assault on Parna's gold mine (where blowguns, arrows, pitchforks, swords and spears are used and the bad guy with the weird chest hair dies only after he takes an arrow, blowgun dart, knife and, finally, a spear to his chest!) are visual highlights. The final half hour is a non-stop gorefest (including three amazing decapitations as well as a guy getting cut in half at the waist!) and the film has some colorful set designs (including a really bright blood-red lake) and unintentionally hilarious dialogue (much of it relating to eye or lack thereof). Director Ratno Timoer is batting 3-for-3 in my book and someone should really release more of his films to English-speaking audiences. The fullscreen DVD I viewed looks to have been compiled from different sources (at one point, Japanese subtitles appear on-screen), but it is very sharp with rich colors. A must-own! A Terror Vision (British DVD; PAL Region 2) Release. Not Rated. Did I forget to mention that you'll witness a man being torn apart at his crotch?

THE BOXER'S OMEN (1983) - I think my mind has just been blown. In this insane Shaw Brothers production, Chan Hung (Philip Ko; SEEDING OF A GHOST - 1983) witnesses his brother getting his neck broken in a martial arts tournament by dirty fighting Thai boxer Ba Bo (Bolo Yeung). Chan promises his now paraplegic brother that he will get even for this injustice, so he travels to Thailand and tells Ba Bo that he will be dead within a year. Earlier, Chan (who is a Triad enforcer) was saved from a deadly trap in a warehouse by some criminal adversaries when a mysterious monk with a pronounced aura suddenly appears and kills all his rivals. Ever since that incident, Chan is haunted by visions of that monk and a strange glowing symbol, so when Chan spots that symbol on a temple when traveling by boat on a river in Thailand, he enters the temple and finds out that he was expected. A monk relates to Chan a story that happened a year earlier, where the monk in Chan's visions battled a black magician and lost. The monk was able to capture the black magician's spirit (in the form of a bat) and drives a spike through its heart. This only seems to piss-off the black magician, as we see him perform an unbelievable ritual where he milks the vemon of cobras, mixes it with the gooey brains of a human skull and feeds the mixture to three spiders (who drink the fluid through straws!). The black magician sneaks into the monk's sleeping quarters, defies gravity by climbing the wall and crawling on the ceiling and drops the spiders onto the monk's eyes, where they inject him with the poison mixture, killing him. It turns out that the monk was Chan's twin brother in a previous life and Chan only has one year to live, unless he can come up with a way to defeat the black magician and revert the poison eye curse so his twin brother can become immortal. Are you with me so far? Chan shaves his head and become a monk at the temple, learning the mystic ways of Buddhism, sometimes the hard way (he takes a meditative dip in a sacred pond and ends up covered with leeches!). Eventually, Chan (who changes his name to Kaidi Baluo) becomes an expert in Buddha magic and battles the black magician (in one of the most outrageous sequences you will ever see), defeating him. Chan then returns to his old life in Hong Kong, but his problems are far from over. It seems the black magician has associates, who revive the black magician (in the guise of a woman!) in a ritual that must be seen to be believed. Too bad for Chan that a curse of poison blindness is put on him in the middle of his bout with Ba Bo (remember him?). Chan must return to Thailand, where he must do battle against an evil unheard of until now, but first he must find a thousand year-old mushroom which will give him the "Essence of Iron". Oh, no, this battle is going to be fierce, especially when Chan lies to Buddha about breaking his vow of abstinence. I swear, I'm not making this shit up. It all ends in a temple in Nepal that will have you not believing your eyes, ears or your basic mental reasoning. Yeah, it's that good!  A simple review could never do this Hong Kong fantasy/horror film the justice it so richly deserves. It should come as no surprise to learn that this was directed by Kuei Chih Hung, who also gave us the demented classics BAMBOO HOUSE OF DOLLS (1973), THE KILLER SNAKES (1974), HEX (1980), CORPSE MANIA (1981) and BEWITCHED (1981). This is not only a very weird film, it is also a well-photographed one, with set designs and strange visuals that will have you laughing out loud and watching with a sense of wonderment, usually in the same scene (The walking bat skeleton and the slurping spiders are so low-tech, they reach a new plateau of entertainment and the final battle at the temple in Nepal, involving flying skeleton hands, carnivorous caterpillars and a hungry giant crocodile, is a thing of pure demented genius). There are some great set-pieces here, particularly Chan's battles with the black magician, such as when an army of bats rise out of the many crocodile skulls that lay on the magician's floor. When Chan defeats the bats with a spell of fire, the magician sends the snapping crocodile skulls in Chan's direction and it only gets increasingly surreal as the battle continues. There's entrail eating; a floating alien-like head with a spinal column that snaps like a whip; body piercing; and the black magician separating his head from his body and it flying through the air trying to strangle Chan with the many red tentacles that shoot from the neck. That's only the tip of the iceberg, as you will see a magic ritual that involves gutting a large crocodile; some full-frontal female nudity; a maggot-ridden corpse; a gag-inducing scene of men regurgitating their food and passing it on to the next person to eat; and bouts of martial arts action. THE BOXER'S OMEN, which was filmed on-location in Hong Kong, Thailand and Nepal (using many real landmarks to great effect), is top-notch entertainment for fans of the unusual. Once you watch this, I can guarantee you will never forget it. Christ, I haven't even touched on the total body skin peeling; the strangest birthing scene I have ever witnessed; and one-eyed creatures (that look like headless shaved poodles!) that shoot laser beams! What the hell are you waiting for? Also starring Lam Hiu Yin, Wai Ga-man, Johnny Wang and Elvis Tsui. Available from Celestial Pictures on VCD and Image Entertainment on DVD. Not Rated.

BOY GOD (1983) - You want proof that the Philippines never heard of child labor laws? Just watch this film, a Filipino fantasy with so many "What The Fuck?" moments, you'll need a scientific calculator to keep track. The film opens with a ghostly warrior in a headband raping a woman named Cora while she is sleeping. Nine months later, she gives birth to a baby boy and it's apparent from the moment he is born that he is special (When the midwife tries to cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors, the blade snaps in half!). When Cora and her husband Isabello are shot dead by Isabello's evil brother Robbie, Cora's mother escapes with the baby and raises him. A few years pass and the baby is now a young boy named Roco (Nino Muhlach; BRUCE LIIT - 1978; ENTENG ANTING - 1980), who tries to hide his superhuman powers (such as the ability to split cords of wood with his bare hands) from the other townspeople (Grandma is fully aware of his abilities). Granny tells Roco the truth about his parents' deaths (It seems Robbie was in love with Cora, but she chose his brother instead) and he vows to find Robbie and kill him. Roco does have a serious Achilles' heel, though: Whenever he comes in contact with water, he becomes weak and loses all his powers (His grandmother tells him, "Somehow you're like a limestone. That is why when you get heated, you get harder and when you get soaked in water, you begin to dissolve like the 'stone." Well, there's one mystery solved!). It also seems that there is something very sinister going on around the village. Not only are there big hairy werewolf creatures on the loose, who are murdering the local villagers at night, there is also an evil German scientist that is pouring a poisonous chemical into the ocean, which is killing all the fish. Of course, Roco gets embroiled in the entire mess when he follows one of the werewolves into a house occupied by three creepy spinsters. Roco accuses the spinsters of being werewolves, but they just laugh and force him to have dinner with them. When Roco sees that the meal being served is liver, he runs screaming out of the house and is hit by a Jeep! The evil German scientist witnesses the accident and notices that Roco is unharmed, so he orders his head henchman, who just happens to be Robbie, to kidnap Roco so he can use him in his illicit experiments. Meanwhile, the three spinsters, who are really werewolves (there's an amazing stop-motion transformation sequence that must be seen to be believed), and a vampire named Captain Hugo (!) attack the village at night, terrorizing and killing the townspeople (When the vampire, who looks like a flying monkey from THE WIZARD OF OZ, tries to bite Roco on the leg, he breaks his teeth!). A series of circumstances find Roco immobilized by water and being captured by the spinsters. They strip him naked, bathe him, tie him to a spit and begin roasting him over an open fire, not aware that heat only makes him stronger. He breaks free and clobbers the werewolf spinsters, only to be captured in flight by vampire Hugo. Roco breaks Hugo's wings in mid-flight, only to be dropped in the ocean, where he is saved by Valkan, a blind elder of a race of beings called the Immortals. He teaches Roco how to control and harness his powers and also tells Roco that he is the son of an Immortal. Valkan tells Roco that he can visit his parents (his real father was the ghostly Immortal who raped his mother in her sleep), but he must go on a long journey to get there, which starts off with a visit to the Land Of the Small People (Filipino midget alert!) and will also include a fight with a giant cyclops, a pair of Siamese cavemen joined at the back (!), who can separate at will, and a cave full of Shadow People who can shoot laser beams out of their eyes. Eventually, Roco will meet his parents again (alas, stepdad Isabello is not included in this package), but he will also be captured by Robbie and the evil German scientist, who we find out is responsible for the creation of the werewolves and the vampire. I've only touched on the craziness on view here. Needless to say, this is one film that is a must-see if you are a fan of Filipino insanity.  This outrageous fantasy, directed by J. Erastheo Navoa (HEPE, a.k.a. THE CRAZY BUNCH - 1980; TATLO SILANG TATAY KO - 1983) and written by Joeben Miraflor, is truly mind-boggling; not only for the zany plot, characters and violence, but also for the shameless way it puts a child in downright dangerous situations. No amount of alcohol or drugs can ever wash away the memory of watching the spinsters washing the nude body of actor Nino Muhlach (the son of Executive Producer Alexander Muhlach and the highest-paid child actor in Filipino film history, who had over twenty films under his chubby little belt before he starred in this), even if there's a well-placed flower in frame covering-up his naughty bits or the sight of his nude body roasting over a fire (with his naked ass prominently on display). It's just wrong for so many reasons, but the low-rent makeup and special effects, which includes cheap opticals, forced-perspective shots (especially during the Cyclops attack) and dimestore werewolf and vampire costumes, will have you roaring with laughter. Also amazingly hilarious are the scenes where Roco rolls himself up into a ball and uses himself in a game of werewolf bowling or the Arthurian Legend takeoff where Roco goes to pull a sword out of a stone and ends up breaking it in two. Nevermind that the actor playing the German scientist is obviously palyed by a Filipino and just go with it, because it's a trip filled with bloody violence (including a decapitation by a flying shield), colorful characters and a storyline that crowded with ideas that the meager budget can hardly afford to pull off. I put BOY GOD (which is also known as STONE BOY) on the same pedestal as THE KILLING OF SATAN (1983) and that's high praise indeed. Also starring Jimi Melendez, Isabel Rivas and Cecille Castillo. Originally released on VHS by Video City Productions and available on DVD-R from online gray market sellers, including Trash Palace. Not Rated.

BRUCE LI IN NEW GUINEA (1978) - Anthropologist Wan Li (Ho Chung Tao; better known as "Bruce Li"; BRUCE LI'S MAGNUM FIST - 1977) and his friend Chin Sang (Li Chin-kun) head out to Snake Worship Island in New Guinea; Wan Li to observe the different sects, such as the Luna Sect and the Devil Sect (who are said to be in possession of the legendary Snake Pearl) and Chin Sang to observe the different styles of kung fu practiced there, especially Snake Style kung fu. Their two guides lead them to the Snake Tribe, but it is a long and arduous journey through the jungle to get there. While Wan and Chin wait in the jungle, the two guides head out to look for food and begin stealing bananas and and melons from two clueless natives (played strictly for comical effect). That night, Wan uses his kung fu skills to save a native girl being chased by a group of natives, but the girl dies of snake poisoning after telling Wan that she was to be used as a human sacrifice in a ceremony performed by the Snake Tribe, who are now controlled by the Devil Sect and their leader, the Great Wizard (Chan Sing). The Great Wizard is the Master of Snake Style kung fu, as we see him use his skills on his two best students (one of them portrayed by Hong Kong regular Bolo Yeung [BLOODSPORT - 1988]). Wan and Chin meet fellow Chinaman Meh Cheng in the middle of the jungle and he tells them that he is looking for the Snake Pearl. When Wan and Chin tell him that they are not interested in the object, Cheng doesn't believe them and tries to kill their two guides (to slow down their progress), but Wan catches him in the act and uses his superior kung fu skills to defeat Cheng, who retreats into the jungle. Cheng is attacked by a large number of Devil Sect members, but he manages to fight them off, only to run into the Grand Wizard, who quickly defeats Cheng with his Snake Style kung fu and a poison ring. Wan and Chin are next to fight the Devil Sect and they split-up in the process and several months pass. Chin has returned home and thinks than Wan is dead, but a year later Wan returns home a changed man. It seems Wan had fallen in love with the Snake Tribe Chief's beautiful daughter, Princess (Danna), but the Great Wizard wants his idiot son to marry her so he can reap all the rewards and riches the Snake Tribe possesses (including the Snake Pearl). Wan tells his story to Chin (told in flashbacks) of how he fought the Great Wizard and lost (that damned poison ring again), but he was brought back from a certain death and nursed back to health by Princess (who has a pet gorilla named Cheetah, who protects her with his kung fu skills!) and they fall in love. A series of circumstances force Wan to leave Snake Worship Island, but Princess slips him a love potion that makes any other women who shows interest in him to see nothing but snakes! Wan must return to the island to defeat the Great Wizard and return to Princess, who has had Wan's baby, and it's about to be sacrificed! Can Wan arrive in time?  This ridiculous martial arts fantasy, co-directed by C.Y. Yang and Kong Hung (better known as "Joseph Kong" and "Joseph Velasco", who has directed other martial arts flicks like THE HONG KONG CAT - 1973; RETURN OF BRUCE - 1977 and CLONES OF BRUCE LEE - 1977), has all the prerequisite ingredients of a cheesy Hong Kong kung fu flick of the 70's: Laughable English dubbing ("Princess, you are a slut!"); exaggerated sound effects during the fight scenes; a music soundtrack full of stolen cues; and plenty of camera zooms. This film also has a guy in the chintziest gorilla suit you will ever see performing kung fu moves; some fantasy elements (what exactly is the importance of the Snake Pearl is never made clear); the late addition of an overweight white adventurer (Alan Ellerton) and his black sidekick (who sets race relations back fifty years with a single line of dialogue!); and a pit of poisonous snakes. All of this adds-up to one enjoyably nutty viewing experience that, while lacking in bloody violence, still manages to entertain with its plentiful fight scenes and off-the-wall storyline. It's one part martial arts flick, one part jungle adventure and one part fantasy. What more could you want? Also starring Chen Yen Chun, Lee Hoi San, Shan Mao and Lin Yang Yang. Originally released on VHS by Video Gems in a badly-cropped fullscreen print. The version I viewed was sourced from a nice looking widescreen print taken from some budget DVD release (possibly from Entertainment Programs, Inc.) which, for some reason, loudly bleeps out the word "bitch" whenever it is spoken, but leaves all the "bastards" untouched. Rated R.

CALAMITY OF SNAKES (1982) - Holy serpentines Batman! If you think THE KILLER SNAKES (1974) is the ultimate Hong Kong snake film, wait until you get a look at this piece of work. In the first few minutes alone, dozens of live snakes are graphically killed on-screen, proving once again that Chinese filmmakers have no regard for reptile life as long as it looks good on film. The story is simple: On a new constriction site, the workers unearth a huge nest of snakes. Rather than relocate the snakes to a new location, the crooked construction company owner, Mr. Chang, orders his workers to kill all the snakes (he personally operates the crane to chop up the snakes into little pieces as they are helpless in the pit, while his workers kill all the escapees with picks and shovels, all in loving close-ups), disregarding his religious wife's dire warning that the snakes will get their revenge. He should have listened to his wife. When a highrise apartment complex is finished on the construction site, a series of snake attacks begin to plague the building, causing many deaths and nothing but headaches for Mr. Chang, who tries to cover-up the snake problems any way he can. Only the building's architect, Shu Cheng Fang, seems bothered about the sudden appearance of the snakes, as the curse seems to be real because the snakes (whose leader is a big-ass boa constrictor) not only attack people in the apartment building, they also assault the dormitory housing the construction workers several blocks away and kill many of the workers in a mass attack. Shu Cheng Fang comes to the conclusion that if the leader of the snakes is killed, the problem will be solved, so he hires snake expert Master Lin (who puts on a show where he lets snakes bite his tongue!) to capture and kill the giant boa constrictor. After losing a couple of fingers due to the boa's wrath (it's quite the spectacle), Master Lin kills the boa by hanging it on a noose. Thinking that their snake problem is over, Mr. Chang throws a huge party at the apartment building, where the new tenants and potential investors for future projects are in attendance. Before you can say, "Man speaks with forked tongue", a huge amount of snakes (and I do mean huge) lay siege to the building. Nearly everyone dies before the police send men in with flamethrowers. The snakes get the final revenge when the giant boa puts in another appearance and coils it's flaming body around Mr. Chang, causing him to burst into flames. That'll teach him!  This is a film that is sure to give PETA and other animal rights activists conniption fits, as there are many disturbing scenes of snakes being killed in every way imaginable (including the removal of a live snake's gall bladder, supposedly an aphrodisiac, just like in THE KILLER SNAKES) and a lengthy sequence where several mongooses (mongeese?) are set loose to attack and kill a room full of cobras. None of it is very pretty and, while I would never condone live animal slaughter on film as a medium for entertainment, I must confess that I found some of the scenes fascinating and hypnotic in a sadistic sort of way. Director William Cheung Kei (HEROES OF THE WILD - 1977), who takes the name "William Chang Kee" here and co-wrote the screenplay with Chrile Lee Hang Leng, revels in the scenes of the snakes' demises, but he also gives them the chance to inflict pain on the cast (some of it looks very real) before they are dispatched. Here, they don't just slither, they also fly through the air, possess superhuman strength and, at one point, break all the windows of a car to get to their prey. If you have aversions to snakes, believe me when I say that this is not the film for you. Snakes attack people in elevators, in their beds, while playing Mah Jong, taking a bath and one lady in her wheelchair is attacked while knitting. There is nothing here left to the imagination and I give the actors a lot of respect for being willing to fall face-first and roll around in what are obviously piles of real snakes. Director Cheung Kei also tosses in some comedy (especially between Mr. Chang's assistant and an obese female tenant) and uses slow-motion photography to good effect, such as Master Lin's battle with the giant boa and the finale, where Mr. Chang swings a sword while hordes of snakes fly through the air in his direction. CALAMITY OF SNAKES isn't for everyone, but those of you that dig this genre will find much to enjoy here. Be aware that the print issued by Deimos Entertainment on DVD as part of their Eastern Horror series (Vol. 5) and by BCI Entertainment as part of their Eastern Horror Advantage Collection 10 Movie Set (a steal at $14.95 or less!) is struck from a soft widescreen Japanese-subtitled, English-dubbed VHS tape. It's watchable, but the English dubbing is hilarious (One girl actually says, "Mamma Mia!"). Starring San Luen Pan, Lo Pak Ling, Ko Leun, Auyan Sar Fa, Lo Tao Lan and Chow Chung Lim. Also known as REVENGE OF THE SNAKES. A lot of footage (and I mean a lot) from this film was inserted into the obscure 1985 American horror film THE SERPENT WARRIOR, starring Clint Walker and Christopher Mitchum. Not Rated, but did I really need to tell you that?

THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW (1983) - The town of Ludlow, New England (actually filmed in Wisconson) is celebrating its' 200th anniversary. The Ludlow Estate in England sends over an antique gold plated harmonium (a panio that sounds like a harpsicord) as a gift and soon people start dying. A reporter (Stephanie Cushna), who left Ludlow when she was nine, returns to do a story on the town's bicentennial. She knows that this is not the first time that the harmonium has been in town. Her grandfather once told her a story about the cursed harmonium and how it killed many of Ludlow's townspeople years before. She begins to dig for information and does not like what she finds. Meanwhile, strange things are happening in Ludlow. Object begin to levitate. Toy dolls come to life. A young retarded girl is torn apart by the demonic ancestors of Ludlow (hence the title). Blood mysteriously appears everywhere. Can the reporter and the town priest (Paul Von Hausen) stop this madness before it wipes out the entire town? Do you really care? This example of regional filmmaking comes to us from Bill Rebane, who first gained notoriety when Herschell Gordon Lewis took Rebane's unfinished film, TERROR AT HALFDAY (1965), added new scenes and released it as MONSTER A GO-GO. THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW is slightly better than most of Rebane's films (mainly because of the fleeting nudity and gore, including a bloody decapitation), but he still has a long way to go before he reaches the stature of Al Adamson. Rebane also photographs most of his films (including this one) using the pseudonym "Ito" (?!). Former GINGER heartthrob Cheri Caffaro is listed as one of the associate producers. If you decide not to rent this one, don't worry. You're not missing much. For more on Bill Rebane see BLOOD HARVEST, THE GAME and INVASION FROM INNER EARTH reviews. A TWE Home Video Release. Not Rated.

DESERT WARRIOR (1988) - Holy fuck! This is one truly terrible film. So terrible, in fact, that it could quite possibly be one of the most unintentionally entertaining movies ever made. On a post-nuke Earth, the world is ruled by evil warlord Baktar (Kenneth Peerless, here using the pseudonym "Kenneth Peer"), who stages gladiator fights in a miniature Thunderdome-style arena. Running out of fresh food and water, not to mention everyone is slowly dying of radiation poisoning (Baktar's attempt at getting women pregnant results in mutant babies), Baktar sends out his top warrior, Zerak (Lou Ferrigno, who isn't dubbed), to search for a woman who is not contaminated by radiation. That woman happens to be Racela (Shari Shattuck; THE NAKED CAGE - 1985), who is a member of an advanced race of humans called The Drones, who have lived underground since the nuclear bombs fell and therefore are radiation-free. Racela grows tired of living in caves and comes to the surface without permission to blow-off some steam. She is promptly captured by a tribe of mutant ninjas (!), but is soon saved by Zerak. As soon as their eyes meet (well, in Zerak's case, eye, since he wears a black patch over his radiation-scarred left eye), it's love at first sight. Meanwhile, Racela's father, Cortaz (Anthony East; FAST GUN - 1987), obtains permission from the Drones president, Antarius (Mike Cohen), to go to the surface to look for his daughter, but he is warned that if he decides to return to the Drones society, he and everyone he brings back will be executed (they don't want to be contaminated with radiation). As Racela tends to Zerak's battle wounds and nurses him back to health, Cortaz and his group of laser pistol-equipped soldiers begin the search for Racela, first running up against a tribe of mutant pygmies and then battling a tribe of radiation-scarred spear-chuckers. Racela and Zerak trek on foot through the blazing hot desert and just when it seems all hope is lost, they are rescued by Baktar, who plans to mate with Racela and bear normal children (Never mind that Baktar is contaminated. It's best not to dwell on those plot points.). This doesn't sit too well with Zerak, who reunites Racela with her father and send them on their way. Racela refuses to leave Zerak behind, so she steals one of her father's bubble-domed dune buggies and heads back to Baktar's village to free an imprisoned Zerak. She brings Zerak back to Drones headquarters, not aware of the death sentence imposed on all returnees, but they are both saved by Drones scientist Dr. Crea (Mike Monty), who has developed a serum that reverses radiation poisoning (He first uses it on Zerak and we watch as his mutant left eye returns to normal). Trouble ensues when Baktar and his men show up at the Drones' front door and a battle breaks out. Zerak then does something so fucking unrealistic to end the fight that I had to rewind the tape just to make sure I wasn't halucinating. I wasn't.  I have the feeling that we're either dealing with a demented genius or a clueless idiot in one-time director Jim Goldman. This Philippines-lensed film, produced by Hong Kong's Silver Star Film Company, is so poorly made and badly acted (Ferrigno has never been worse than he is here), I'm beginning to believe that Jim Goldman (who has no other credits in the motion picture industry) is actually a pseudonym for a Filipino director (Willie Milan [CLASH OF THE WARLORDS - 1985] would be my best guess). The film is full of many badly-staged action scenes, where the stuntmen can plainly be seen anticipating the explosions around them (yet they still are a good microsecond or two late in jumping in the air!) and laser gun battles where the optically added laser beams hit many people but they don't react. This flick is hilarious for it's many distractions, from the flubbed lines (no second takes here), badly recorded sound, fight scenes that look as if they were choreographed by someone with cerebal palsey and Lou Ferrigno's incredibly lame line readings (yeah, I know he's deaf but, c'mon people, he's simply awful). This is a total embarassment for everyone involved and is enjoyable for that fact alone. Watching this film is like passing a bad accident in your car. You know when you slow down to look at it, you may not like what you see, but you just can't help yourself. DESERT WARRIOR is one of the best train wrecks ever committed to celluloid and is a treat for all badfilm fans. You gotta love a film where Lou Ferrigno's Zarek says to Baktar in the finale, "Let me give you a hug!" and then does so, ending the final battle in a peaceful manner. Un-fucking-believable! The cliche-ridden script was written by Carl Kuntze (BLACK MAMBA - 1974) and Bob Davies, who definitely watched too many MAD MAX and STAR WARS rip-offs before penning this. Sonny Sanders (PHANTOM RAIDERS - 1988) was the Assistant Director. Not to be confused with Enzo G. Castellari's TAUREG: THE DESERT WARRIOR (1984), starring Mark Harmon. Also starring Jerry Bayron, Tony Young, Jim McKensie, Ernest Olsen, Christine Landson and Don Holden. Originally released on VHS by Prism Home Entertainment and not yet available on DVD. Rated PG-13, but don't let that put you off. There are several instances of topless female nudity and enough carnage (including Baktar grabbing a girl by her hair and ripping the top of her scalp off to prove she's a mutant) to keep you pleasantly surprised. UPDATE: Carl Kuntze wrote me an email explaining his (non) involvement with this film. To read it, click HERE.

THE DEVIL'S SWORD (1984) - As a sorcerer is sitting on a hilltop, he is nearly hit by a meteorite that whizzes past his ear. He grabs the meteor and takes it to his home, where he fashions it into a magical sword (the sword of the title). So begins another wild Indonesian fantasy, filled with violence, nudity and, above all, fun. We are next introduced to the Crocodile Queen (who can become invisible or turn into a crocodile). Every year a tribe of people sacrifice one of their male members to her, by throwing him naked into the lake where she lives (in a subterranean cave). The Queen resurrects warrior Banyu Jaga (Advent Bangun) to stop a wedding being performed by the tribe. He flies through the air, standing atop a boulder (like he was riding a surfboard!) and disrupts the wedding (when he jumps off the boulder, it crushes a tribal member against a tree). He tells the tribal leader that the Queen wants his newly-married son-in-law as a sacrifice (She fucks all her sacrifices and turns them into love slaves or cannibals that she keeps locked in a cage). When the tribal leader refuses, Banyu Jaga goes about killing nearly every male member of the tribe (decapitating a few and sending one guy twenty feet up in the air with a strike of his two curved swords). He then fights the tribal leader (he cuts off his hand and then disembowels him) and his daughter, the Bride, (and her umbrella of doom), before warrior Mandala (Barry Prima) arrives in town to save her. Mandala and Banyu Jaga (who once had the same master) fight it out, but Banyu resurrects some Crocodile Men out of the earth and they keep Mandala busy while Banyu delivers the groom to the Queen. Mandala gets a telepathic message from his master that he is in trouble and rushes to his home where Mandala discovers his master near death, his legs infected with puss-filled lesions. Mandala goes to the forest to retrieve a magic mushroom (in a scene that screams out "What The Fuck?!?"), grabs one, makes a potion and gives it to his master. He then cuts off both his master's legs with a sword to save his life! His legless master then gives Mandala a parchment, which is actually a map to the "Mountain of Swords", the location of the Devil's Sword we saw being made in the beginning of the film. Mandala the joins forces with the Bride to rescue her beloved from the clutches of the Crocodile Queen, but first they head to the Mountain of Swords to retrieve the Devil's Sword. He is not alone in his quest, as the Queen sends Banyu Jaga to also get the sword and three other evil warriors (each with different abilities and weapons) are also looking to get their mitts on it. Expect lots of gory goodness to follow.  If you're expecting logic, boy, do you have the wrong film! But if you want to be totally entertained, you picked the right flick. There are too many outrageous scenes and pieces of dialogue to describe in this review, but my favorite happens when Mandala and the Bride take a River Styx-like raft ride on their way to the Mountain of Swords. They are met on the bank of the bubbling, smoke-filled lake by a robed figure on a raft. When they are in the middle of the lake, the robed figure reveals itself to be a skeleton (!) and then they are attacked by three crocodiles that stand up on their hind legs (you really gotta see it to believe it!). The crocodiles attack them with huge serrated-edged swords (they look like chainsaw blades), until Mandala, the Bride and even the skeleton dispatch them by impalement or decapitation (a preferred way of death in this film). I guarantee that you will rewind this scene a few times, just to satisfy yourself that you didn't imagine it. The whole film has a delirious feel to it (the set design of the Crocodile Queen's underground lair is a marvel of imagination), including the trio of nasty warriors looking for the sword. They include a toothless old woman with a whip (She says to one warrior, "Wanna play around a little?); a bald-headed guy with a flying hat that decapitates people (He calls the old woman a "dirty daughter of a whore!"), which is a direct steal from MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE (1975); and a guy with a snake that turns into a fighting staff (He tells the old woman, "You smell worse than death!"). Their fight against each other and Banyu Jaga at the mouth of the cave that holds the Devil's Sword is a classic of weird cinema and I love that the old woman gets most of the insults directed at her (Including, "You polluted bitch-hound!). Her death is also truly memorable. Barry Prima and Advent Bangun have appeared together in many films, including Ratno Timoer's REVENGE OF NINJA (1984; Timoer also directed this film) as well as THE WARRIOR 2 (1983) for director Dasri Jacob. Like I've said before, there's nothing quite like the experience of watching Indonesian-made fantasy films and this one is an easily obtainable example if you need to pop your cherry or just to have a good time. Wait until you see the cyclops Prima has to fight in the cave. Simply unbelievable. Also starring Gudhy Sintara, Enny Christina, Rita Zahara, I.M. Damsyik and Kandar Sinyo. This film, produced by Gope T. Samtani for Rapi Films (Indonesia's prime supplier of sleaze) is available on DVD in a nice widescreen print from Mondo Macabro. Not Rated. Did I forget to mention that there's a crocodile that shoots laser beams from it's mouth?

DEVIL WOMAN (1973) - Weird Hong Kong/Philippines co-production that mixes martial arts action with horror elements. A woman gives birth to a strange-looking female baby during a torrential lightning storm and soon thereafter a rash of snake attacks takes place in the nearby village. The townspeople blame the killings on the little girl and her dirt-poor family, as the little girl, Manda, seems to have supernatural powers to control snakes. As a little girl, Manda is constantly taunted and teased by the town's children. When one of the kids tries to pull the scarf off of Manda's head (she's never without it), he is bitten by snakes and dies. The townspeople burn down Manda's parents house in retribution, killing her mother and father. Years pass and Manda (Rosemarie Gil; BLACK MAMBA - 1974), now a grown woman, lives in an underground cave in the mountains by herself. Manda has not forgotten about her parents' murders and every once in a while she and her snakes travel close to town to get some payback on those responsible for their deaths. She blackmails a clan of nomadic bandits to help her get revenge (she threatens them with her horde of snakes to keep them in line) and she has them try to kidnap Tina, the daughter of a wealthy local. Luckily, visiting Chinaman Shu Wen (Alex Tang Lec), arrives just in time to save Tina and kicks the asses of the bandits with his superior kung fu skills. This only pisses off Manda, who sends her snakes into town to commit more murders, which forces the townspeople to rely on reluctant stranger Shu Wen and his unbeatable martial arts techniques to help them defeat Manda, her snakes and the bandits. When Manda and the bandits finally do manage to kidnap Tina, Shu Wen must single-handedly defeat the hordes of bandits (who seem to get larger in number as the film progresses) in hand-to-hand combat, karate-chop a bunch of snakes (some of the flying variety!) and then face-off with Manda, who finally removes her scarf to reveal a bunch of slithery snakes where her hair should be. The finale reveals that Manda doesn't just control snakes, she can also shoot fireballs from her fingertips and become invisible at will. Too bad the snakes on her head didn't look behind her, because as Manda is walking backwards while doing battle with Shu Wen, she falls off a cliff and dies.  While the English dubbing is atrocious, DEVIL WOMAN is not without it's weird charms. Co-directors Albert Yu and Felix Villar (ISLA DE TORO - 1971), working with a script by producer Jimmy L. Pascual, offer enough demented moments to keep the viewer off-balance, especially the party Manda throws in her underground lair for the bandits, where she allows them to rape a bunch of local girls while she sits on her throne watching it all, until she suddenly changes her mind and sics her snakes on one bandit who is raping just a little too rough! While the film is obviously lensed in the Philippines, the only person in the cast who is worth a damn is Chinese and, even though he refuses to fight, he manages to kick butt every ten minutes or so. While this film can't match the craziness or real-life snake slaughter of Hong Kong productions like THE KILLER SNAKES (1974) or CALAMITY OF SNAKES (1982), it does manage to give you the willies on several occasions, such as when Manda seduces a local man and when he goes to kiss her, he ends up slipping his tongue to a snake instead. Believe it or not, DEVIL WOMAN is really a love story at it's core, where Manda wishes she could have a normal relationship with a local man she was friends with since they were kids, but her Gorgon-like head full of snakes makes that dream an impossibility. While not a good film by any stretch of the imagination (the poor English dubbing, where everyone, including the women, speak with the same halting mid-sentence pause like William Shatner ["I see...you are here!"], turns this film into an unintentional parody), DEVIL WOMAN (also known as EVIL SNAKE GIRL and MANDA THE SNAKE GIRL) is just different enough to hold your attention. A year earlier, the Filipino production NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN (1972; also starring Rosemarie Gil) covered much of the same ground as this film. Also starring Romy Diaz, Yukio Someno, David Yao, Lito Legaspi, Peter Multan, Joe Garcia, Yuen Yan Wei and Cheri Gil (Rosemarie's daughter) as the young Manda. This actually got a theatrical release in the U.S. in the mid-70's (the artwork on the ad mats gave away Manda's not-so-secret reveal), but never received a legitimate U.S. home video release until Something Weird Video released a scratchy print on VHS in the late 90's. BRUKA, QUEEN OF EVIL was shot back-to-back with DEVIL WOMAN and is not, as is erroneously reported on several sites and reference books, the same film, even though it shares the same actors, directors and crew. Rated R.

THE DIVINE ENFORCER (1991) - This is the best laugh that I've had in a long time although I doubt the filmmakers intended it that way. I also doubt that this film will be endorsed by any Catholic organization. Father Daniel (Michael Foley) is the new priest in town. When he hears confessions, he uses that information to punish sinners vigilante-style. With his arsenal of cross-shaped weapons and martial arts skills, he kills all the heathens that cross his path, but not before giving them one last chance to repent. Father Daniel also has "the sight", the ability to know something is going to happen before it does. The town is also under the grip of terror known as the "Vampire Killer" (terribly overplayed by a chunky Don Stroud), a psychopath who kills women by draining and drinking their blood then cutting off their heads. He then boils the heads and uses the skulls for his enjoyment (he uses one as a cereal bowl!). He makes a couple of visits to Father Daniel's confessional, where he taunts the poor Father. Since the confessional is sacred, Father Daniel must take the law into his own hands. Spouting such hilarious lines as, "Open the gates of Hell, for I am the right hand of God!", he hunts down the Vampire Killer and plants a crucifix-shaped dagger into his heart. The strange finale suggests that Father Daniel may indeed be God himself! This habit-forming (no pun intended) piece of sacreligious schlock is poorly made but holds your attention due to its offbeat subject matter. The sound is bad, the actors step on each other's lines and the plot situations have to be seen to be believed. Judy Landers plays the miniskirted housekeeper (!) of the parish. Erik Estrada (spelled "Eric" in the opening and closing credits!) is the bored monsignor. Jan Michael Vincent (again showing what alcohol and cocaine abuse can do to a career) is another priest who gets knifed in the neck by Stroud. Jim Brown and Robert Z'dar portray drug runners who get swift justice from Father Daniel. Carrie Chambers portrays a girl who also has "the sight" and helps Father Daniel find the Vampire Killer. There's even a Japanese Madonna-wannabe named Hiroko who sings us her latest hit. I'll bet none of these people will ever use this film as a reference! Yet, it is facinating in so many ways with its religious themes mixed with extreme bits of violence, nudity and strange visuals (including a talking skull) that I would have to recommend THE DIVINE ENFORCER to those looking for something unusual. It's bad but it's entertaining! I wonder what first-time director Robert Rundle, with his skewed sense of reality, will offer us next? A Prism Entertainment Release. This film is Unrated.

GHOST BRIGADE (1993) - This is a strange genre film (aka GREY KNIGHT and THE KILLING BOX) that deals with a group of undead soldiers attacking both Union and Confederate platoons during the Civil War. A Union officer (Adrian Pasdar of NEAR DARK - 1987) releases a Confederate officer (Corbin Bernsen) from prison to help him track down the renegade battalion. Clues left behind point to Bernsen’s former troop as committing the massacres, even though they have died two years earlier in a Union "killing box". Bernsen discovers that his former battalion have been possessed by an unseen force, brought from Africa years before on slaver ships, making them impervious to bullets or knives. A mute slave girl (Cynda Williams), who is clairvoyant, helps Bernsen and Pasdar track the undead brigade which results in a battle to the death. This compact film (80 minutes; a supposedly longer version exists overseas) contains some striking visuals and gory effects (supplied by KNB Effects, the busiest effects house in the business) and the unusual subject matter manages to hold your attention. Although it is leisurely-paced, I found it to be a good bet for renters. Also starring Ray Wise, Roger Wilson and Martin Sheen (enough already!). Directed by George Hickenlooper (HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE - 1991), produced by Brad Krevoy and Steve Stabler and written by Matt Greenberg. The sets were left over from TBS’ production of the four hour telefilm GETTYSBURG. A Turner Home Entertainment Video Release. Rated R. Other similarly-themed films include  NIGHT OF HORROR (1981), CURSE OF THE CANNIBAL CONFEDERATES (1982), the slow-paced but affecting EYES OF FIRE (1984) and the disappointing THE SUPERNATURALS (1986).

GHOST WARRIOR (1986) - In 1552 Japan, samurai master Yoshi (Hiroshi Fujioka) is shot with an arrow and crashes through the ice of a frozen lake after unsuccessfully trying to rescue his wife from a rival clan (she dies after an enemy fighter impales her with a throwing knife). Over four hundred years later, Yoshi's body is found encased in ice and a scientific team, led by Dr. Alan Richards (John Calvin), attempt to revive him. Viewing the procedure is oriental antiquities expert Chris Welles (Janet Julian), who is given Yoshi's sword to study. The sword is "the best of the best", belonging to a man who would be considered a bushido master, according to Professor Takagi (Robert Kino), a Japanese sword expert. When Yoshi comes to, Chris and Dr. Richards try to speak to him (without much luck) and then Chris gives him back his sword and clothes (a risky move that pays off). Chris begins to build a friendship with Yoshi, but he doesn't particularly care for Dr. Richards (he's a good judge of character). When a greedy guard tries to steal Yoshi's sword (it's worth a fortune), Yoshi kills him and escapes the facility (he gets his first taste of TV [a W.A.S.P. music video!] while passing the guard station and doesn't like what he sees) and faces the modern world for the first time. He is amazed at the sight of cars (he's smart enough to know to disable a car by puncturing the tires), the city skyline at night and saves an old man from a street gang led by Johnny Tooth (an unrecognizable Peter Liapis of GHOULIES), by slicing up his gang with the sword. The police, led by Detective Berger (Frank Schuller), investigates the murder of the guard (Berger calls it "A terminal mishap of major proportions") and pretty soon there are reports of a strangely-dressed man walking around town. Chris begins searching the street for Yoshi, fearing for his life, as Yoshi battles Johnny Tooth and the rest of his gang, who use motorcycles and guns with little effect. Chris finally catches up with Yoshi and tries to shield him from Dr. Richards (who wants to dissect him) and the police, but Richards kidnaps Yoshi and tries to kill him by injecting an air bubble in his heart. It doesn't work and Yoshi and Chris steal a horse with the police and Dr. Richards not far behind. The police capture Chris while Yoshi leads a police helicopter on a chase. After killing Dr. Richards, saving Chris and getting shot by Detective Berger, Yoshi plunges into a lake after telling Chris, "There are no second chances."  This film, a Charles Band production for his Empire Pictures outfit (which included such films as ZONE TROOPERS - 1985 and RE-ANIMATOR - 1985) and directed by J. Larry Carroll (his only directorial credit, although he did co-write the screenplays for TOURIST TRAP - 1979 and THE DAY TIME ENDED - 1980, other Charles Band productions), is a slow-moving, but never boring, fantasy fish-out-of-water tale. Yoshi's interaction with the modern world is never played for comic relief on his behalf, but rather as how an intelligent person would react to things that are unknown (one comical scene has two diners mistaken Yoshi for Toshiro Mifune when he walks into a Japanese restaurant!). There are bloody bits of violence whenever Yoshi uses his sword, as hands and other appendages are sliced up or open (both Johnny Tooth and Dr. Richards die memorable deaths). While this film was primarily made to cash in on the success of ICEMAN (1984), it has enough merit and heart to stand on it's own. It's a nice way to spend a laid-back 81 minutes that's punctuated by some unexpected moments of graphic violence and some racist dialogue (Johnny and his gang call Yoshi "nip", "slant eyes" and "bonzai", although I'm not sure if "bonzai" is a racist term). Originally made as SWORDKILL in 1984 and not released to home video until 1986. Also starring Charles Lampkin, Joan Foley, Bill Morey, Andy Wood and Larry Cedar. A Vestron Video Release. Rated R.

HUMAN LANTERNS (1982) - Another amazingly bizarre martial arts fantasy courtesy of the prolific Shaw Brothers and director Sun Chung. Master Lung (Liu Yung, a.k.a. Tony Liu) and Master Tan (Chen Kuan Tai) are bitter rivals who try to embarrass each other in public as much as possible. At a gathering of their entire village, Master Tan insults Lung by not only announcing that he will have the winning entry in the upcoming Lantern Festival, he also trots out Lung's ex-mistress Yen Chu (Linda Chu) and declares her to be his newest concubine, which is not only a slap in the face to Lung, but also to Lung's wife, Chin (Tanny; BLACK MAGIC 2 - 1976), who is also in attendance. Determined to win the Lantern Festival, Lung hires master lantern maker Chung Fang (Lo Lieh; BLACK MAGIC - 1975), an old rival of Lung's who, seven years earlier, dueled Lung for Chin's hand and lost (he still bears the facial scars from Lung's sword), to make him the finest lantern money can buy. Fang reluctantly agrees, but only on one condition: Lung cannot return to Fang's workshop (a marvelously macabre place) until he is finished with the lantern. Lung agrees and celebrates their collaboration by taking Fang to a brothel, where Lung runs into Yen Chu and threatens her life for becoming Tan's concubine. Later that night, someone wearing a costume (best described as looking like an ape with a hairy skull mask and big-assed claws) kidnaps Yen Chu, brings her back to his place and proceeds to skin her alive (a graphic effect where he first cuts the top of her scalp open and pours mercury into the wound so her can remove her skin in one piece [I've looked this up and it was really done in ancient China!]). When the brothel's madam reports Yen Chu missing and tells Sergeant Poon (Sun Chien) that she heard Lung threaten Yen's life the day before, Lung becomes the town's pariah, shunned by everyone. When the costumed killer, who turns out to be Fang (no surprise there), kidnaps Master Tan's sister Mei (Lin Hsiu Chun) and skins her alive (offscreen this time), it sets off a series of deadly events involving a hired assassin (Lo Meng), the kidnapping of Chin by Fang and an escalating game of one-upmanship between Lung and Tan. The dueling duo realize too late that they are the ones being set-up to take the big fall, as Fang rapes, then kills, Chin (her skinning-alive is done in graphic close-up), Lung discovers Fang's beautiful completed skin lantern (which contains Chin's all-too-familiar mole!) and Fang and Tan team-up, along with Sergeant Poon and his men, to fight Fang in the well-choreographed finale, where Tan loses his life, Fang is burned alive and Lung is left horribly scarred (much worse than he left Fang seven years earlier). Lung finds redemption in his suffering, as he tells Sergeant Poon to give away all his riches to the poor while he travels the countryside to rediscover his humanity.  This sumptuously photographed film (the cinematography and set design are sights to behold) is one part martial arts actioner and one part graphic horror. Director Sun Chung (SEXY KILLER - 1976; BIG BAD SIS - 1976), who co-wrote the screenplay with I Kuang (THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN - 1977), offers many excellent fight sequences (with lots of well-done wire work), along with gory scenes of flaying, beheadings and other bloody mayhem. What's truly amazing about this film is its total lack of likable characters (the finale not withstanding), yet director Chung still makes it totally mesmerizing from beginning to end. The art and set direction, along with the colorful lighting schemes, also make this film stand out from most films of its type. Fang's basement workshop is a thing of surreal beauty, with its oversized spinning wooden gears, multitudes of pieces of hanging human flesh and predominantly neon red-lit color scheme, making it look like a piece of Hell has risen from below and set up shop in the outskirts of the village. Some other standout scenes include: Fang's fight with Mei in a barren forest; the village square littered with the hanging severed heads of Fang's victims; Lung and Tan's fight in a restaurant; and Lung's battle with Fang in the finale, where Fang's basement lair literally collapses around them (the effects work done in this scene is truly astonishing and looks dangerous as hell). Although there are only two skinning scenes shown onscreen, they are effective and brutal. There is some female nudity on view, but director Chung makes sure that none of it is the least bit sexy, as it is shown only during the flayings, which makes it all the more unnerving and disturbing. Fans of Hong Kong weirdness will find much to enjoy here. A classic of its kind. The only way to really enjoy this film is to get your hands on the excellent DVD released by Celestial Pictures, which contains a beautiful widescreen print in Cantonese with optional English subtitles. Not Rated.

THE HUNGRY SNAKE WOMAN (1987) - More Indonesian weirdness that mixes jungle action, vampires, sex and, of course, snakes. In this second sequel to THE SNAKE QUEEN (1982), bad-ass rapist Brian (Advent Bangun; THE BLIND WARRIOR - 1985) must flee into the jungle after unsuccessfully trying to sexually assault virginal new girlfriend Carlita (Nina Anwar). Carlita escapes (but not before Brian shoves a screwdriver through her hand!) and runs home to her parents, where her father says to her, "Oh no, dum-dum! Always thinks she knows best. It's really your own fault!" Brian runs deep into the jungle, where he meets a female snake spirit (you really have to see her!) and her dwarf husband. Brian wants to know the location of the legendary Snake Queen (Suzzanna; QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC - 1979), so the snake spirit wraps him in her tail and tosses him there! Brian wakes up in a cave where trees are made of gold (unfortunately, they are guarded by snakes and scorpions) and the Snake Queen puts in an appearance. Brian offers to be her sex slave is she will make him rich, so the Snake Queen makes Brian an offer: He has a week to kill three women, drink their blood and then dine upon their breasts! If he accomplishes these tasks, she will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Suddenly, Brian is dressed like Count Dracula, complete with fangs, and kills his first female, a girl making out with her boyfriend in the woods. Brian bites her on the neck, drinks her blood and then bites off both her nipples! He then goes on to attack Suzy (also played by Suzzanna), but she is saved by Carlita's brother, Joe (George Rudy), and soon becomes Suzy's lover and protector. Brian tries to have it both ways and makes a side deal with the female snake spirit to kill the Snake Queen (it seems that the Snake Queen is responsible for the snake spirit's current condition). Using a pin supplied by the snake spirit, Brian stabs the Snake Queen while making love, permanently turning her into a snake and losing her powers. Suddenly, Brian has more money and power then he knows what to do with, so he becomes the boss of a criminal organization and tries to buy Carlita's hand in marriage from her father. He turns Brian down and shortly thereafter (with the snake spirit's help), Carlita's father is throwing up centipedes at the dinner table and dies when a huge snake bloodily bursts out of his chest. Carlita is then supernaturally taunted by a pair of scaly hands while sitting on a couch in a bid to convince her to marry Brian. All hell breaks loose when Joe removes the pin from the snake's body and the Snake Queen takes human form once again. Thinking that she is Suzy, he makes love to her, which opens a whole new can of snakes, involving revenge, a fake séance, mistaken identities, kidnappings and a fight involving a chainsaw. Love wins out in the end and all the good girls and guys live happily ever after. So does the Snake Queen.  I've said it once and I'll say it again: Watching these Indonesian fantasies is the closest you'll come to a fever dream without actually having a fever. Director Sisworo Gautama Putra, who also gave us the equally delirious films PRIMITIVES (1978), SRIGALA (1981), THE WARRIOR (1981), the previously-mentioned THE SNAKE QUEEN and it's first sequel PERKAWINAN NYI BLORONG ("Snake Woman's Wedding" - 1983), fills this film with weird visuals (you haven't lived until you have seen the Snake Woman flying through the air in her horse-drawn chariot or her transformation from snake to human in Joe's bedroom), outrageous set-pieces (the fake séance, where the Snake Queen turns the phony medium and his assistant into chickens!) and a lot of hilarious dubbed dialogue (After the first vampire attack, one guy reading a newspaper article of the attack says to another man, "He bit off her tits!" to which the other man replies, "He must have been hungry!"). Strangely, the non-linear storyline (script by Naryono Prayitno; Putra's SATAN'S SLAVE - 1982) begins to make sense as the film progresses and the finale, which involves fights to the death between the Snake Queen and the snake spirit (her snake body makeup can't be described using mere words) and Joe vs. Brian and his men (a chainsaw is involved), are best left for the viewer to experience. I haven't even mentioned that earlier in the film, the Snake Queen magically makes a disobedient man's clothes disappear and then impales him through the stomach with a sharp spike that suddenly pops-up out of the ground. Then, the Snake Queen's handmaidens cannibalize his body until only his bloody skeleton is left! Do I have to describe anything else to convince you to search this out? I didn't think so. A lot of sources list the production date of this film anywhere between 1983 and 1986, but I'm going to say it was made in 1987, since the tombstone of a recently deceased character shows that year as the date of his death. Also starring Dorman Borisman, S. Bono, Rita Supard and Yorita Murni. This was available on VHS and DVD-R in a widescreen Japanese-subtitled print from the now-defunct Midnight Video. You can still find copies available at various grey market sellers. Not Rated.

THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA (1982) - After the success of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), countless rip-offs appeared around the world. This Italian production, filmed in the Philippines, was one of the first. During the last months of World War II, the United States delivers an air strike on a Japanese outpost in Palawan, Philippines, while two commandos, Bob Jackson (David Warbeck; TIGER JOE - 1982) and Capt. David Franks (John Steiner; YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE - 1983), attempt to capture the outpost's leader, Yamato (Protacio Dee), on the ground. Yamato escapes on a plane that also contains a mysterious object that Yamato kills to keep, so Jackson and Franks steal a Jap Zero and give chase, which leads to a dogfight in the air and Yamato's plane crashing into the jungle. Jackson parachutes out of the Zero to check on Yamato's status, but when he gets to the downed plane, he finds Yamato and the object missing. After a short chase, Jackson catches up to Yamato, but before he can take possession of Yamato and the object (which is a statue of a cobra made out of solid gold), a tribe of headhunters shoot poison darts into both Yamato and Jackson. Yamato ends up dead, but the leader of the headhunters, a beautiful white woman with blonde hair named April (Almanta Suska), takes pity on Jackson, pulls the poison dart out of his body and floats his unconscious body on a tree branch down river to civilization. It's now one year later and WWII is over. Jackson is now a hopeless drunk who bets on cockfights in Manila. Capt. Franks shows up and offers Jackson a huge amount of money to go back into the jungle and retrieve the Golden Cobra statue, which legend says gives it's owner great supernatural powers. Jackson reluctantly agrees (after demanding $40,000 and, much to his surprise, it's agreed on) and, from that moment on, Jackson's life will never be the same. Not only are several attempts made on his life, but he is also introduced to American archaeologist Greenwater (Alan Collins; CODE NAME: WILDGEESE - 1985) and his niece Jane (Suska again), who is the identical twin sister of April, who was lost in the jungle as a child when her parent's plane crashed in the jungle. Julie (who was sent to school in the States as a child) and her Uncle have come to the Philippines to find April (or so they say). After Capt. Franks is killed in a car bomb, Jackson, Julie and Greenwater head to the jungles of Palawan to search for April and the Golden Cobra. People will fall in love, motives will be revealed and lives will be lost, as the search gets more treacherous the deeper they travel into the jungle. Greed proves to be the undoing of two of the main characters and the surprise appearance of another character proves to be a lifeline to the survivors as a volcano gets ready to blow it's stack.  While nothing but a low-budget variation of RAIDERS (an ancient object with mythical powers; a pit of snakes; and ancient booby traps are just some of the similarities on view here), director Antonio Margheriti (using his frequent pseudonym "Anthony M. Dawson), who would plunder RAIDERS territory even further with his films ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1983) and JUNGLE RAIDERS (1985), and screenwriter Tito Carpi (Margheriti's ALIEN FROM THE DEEP - 1989) offer enough clumsily-staged action set pieces (some copied verbatim from RAIDERS) and bloody carnage to keep viewers entertained for 95 minutes. David Warbeck is no Indiana Jones (his emotional range runs the gamut from stone-faced to wooden), but he is pretty athletic here, getting into fistfights, dodging bullets and outsmarting booby traps. There are also human sacrifices; blowgun attacks, a cave full of deep, dark family secrets; a pit of lava; bloody bullet squibs; and Margheriti's patented miniature effects work (including the climatic volcano eruption). HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA is nothing special, but it's an OK action adventure/fantasy for those looking for a little diversion that doesn't demand much brainpower on the viewers' part. Also starring Rene Abadesa. Originally released on VHS by Vestron Video in a cropped fullscreen print. The print I viewed was sourced from a nice widescreen Japanese-subtitled VHS tape. Not Rated.

HUNT FOR THE GOLDEN SCORPION (1991) - Entomologist Tom Maitland (David Brandon; STAGE FRIGHT - 1987) is traveling down the Amazon River in Brazil when he is attacked by military types in three helicopters. Tom barely escapes into the jungle with his life, dropping a satchel containing his monogrammed cigarette lighter and American Express card (Don't leave home without it!). When a Brazilian official arrives at the Miami home of Tom's sister, Mary (Christine Leigh; JUST A DAMNED SOLDIER - 1988), with Tom's effects and a cock-and-bull story on how he died, Mary immediately grows suspicious. Later on that day, when Mary finds her home ransacked and her German Shepard, Apollo, beaten brutally to death with a baseball bat, she grows even more suspicious. The capper comes when she receives a letter from Tom that is postdated two days after he supposedly died and inside the envelope are two photos of Tom standing next to an object that he says is so remarkable, he can't describe it to her in a mere letter. Mary heads to Brazil, where she learns Tom is being held prisoner in a jungle camp on trumped-up drug running charges and that he knows the location of the legendary Golden Scorpion, a mythical statue that is said to contain the largest emerald known to man. Mary's life is in constant peril and when she is saved from a kidnapping by down-on-his-luck adventurer Jim Foster (Andy J. Forest; MARK OF THE SCORPION - 1986), she talks him into helping her find her brother and locate the Golden Scorpion. Tom is being held in a military prison by the same people who blew up his boat in the beginning of the film, on orders from evil Scottish businessman Guy McDonald (Denis Bourke), who wants Tom to give him the map to the Golden Scorpion location, but Tom says it was destroyed when the military blew up his boat. Jim and Mary join forces with Ahmed (Max Saura), a Lebanese national, when he saves their lives in the jungle from a band of raping pirates. The trio eventually break Tom out of prison after a lengthy gunfire and explosion-filled battle (where, incredibly, Mary proves adept with automatic weapons and hand grenades) and they head towards the location of the Golden Scorpion, with McDonald and the corrupt military not far behind. Tom leads them to the Golden Scorpion, where Ahmed shows his true colors (his greed proves to be his undoing) and McDonald shows up with his own private mercenary force (He sticks it to the military). McDonald takes the Golden Scorpion, but instead of killing Mary, Tom and Jim, he hands them three plane tickets back to the States! After being saved from the corrupt military officials by a blowgun-toting native, the trio head back to the States, where Jim has a couple of pleasant surprises to spring on Tom and Mary. He's actually a jewel thief who went to Brazil to steal the Golden Scorpion and he gave McDonald a cheap replica he had made and was carrying in his possession the whole trip. Now all three of them can enjoy the riches the Golden Scorpion will bring them. Holy stretching credibility, Batman!  Although nothing spectacular, HUNT FOR THE GOLDEN SCORPION is a fun and violent Italian action adventure film with plenty of action and bloodshed. Veteran director Umberto Lenzi (ALMOST HUMAN - 1974; SPASMO - 1974; CANNIBAL FERROX - 1981; GHOSTHOUSE - 1987), working with a screenplay by Olga Pehar (Lenzi's BLACK DEMONS - 1991), gives us numerous action set-pieces and plenty of bloody bullet squibs and fiery explosions, even tossing some humor into the mix (My favorite bit of humor comes when Jim breaks Tom out of prison and they hear the head of the military radioing-in, inquiring why he is hearing so much gunfire and explosions. Jim gets on the radio and tells him that everything is OK, they're just watching RAMBO III on TV!). Although the film doles-out convenience after incredible convenience (Watching Jim, Mary and Ahmed take-on nearly a hundred soldiers armed with rocket launchers and tanks while breaking Tom out of prison and coming out without a single scratch is one big leap of faith to throw on the viewer, if you ask me) and some of the dialogue risible (Tom: "You son-of-a-Scotsman!"  McDonald: "I thought for a moment you were going to call me a son-of-a-bitch!"), this film is enjoyable hokum if you don't set your sights too high. Sadly, Lenzi (who is still alive at the time of this review) would only direct two more films before retiring from the business. Also starring Philip Wagner, Cristina Amadeo, Renato Cutinho and Cecil Thire. Never available legitimately on home video in the States, but it can be found for purchase on many online gray market seller sites. Not Rated.

INVASION FROM INNER EARTH (1974) - Watching this Bill Rebane-directed dud is the ultimate test of patience. Once again, Rebane (using the pseudonym "Ito") delivers another film that goes nowhere, seems twice as long than it actually is and contains effects so cheap that it makes PLAN 9 look hi-tech in comparison. The basic premise is this: Five people are trapped in a cabin deep in the Manitoba, B.C. woods (actually Wisconson) while people all over the world are dying from a disease spread by an alien spacecraft using red lights and smoke. The five people bicker endlessly as they run out of food and get sporadic messages over their ham radio from an alien voice. One guy steals an airplane and it explodes on take-off. And then there were four. Another guy takes a snowmobile to get some help and is killed by the red lights. And then there were three. The final three (two guys and a girl) head out for civilization by foot, walking in the freezing snow looking for food and other signs of life. One of the guys is killed by the red lights as the remaining man and woman are turned into children (complete with loincloths!) by the aliens. The last shot is of the children walking hand-in-hand down a green field, the beginning of a new human race on a now-unoccupied Earth. Oh, brother! Relentlessly boring, this film begs for action, any type of action, to pop up unexpectedly. You'll get none of that here. What you do get is a non-stop talkfest and none of it is a least bit interesting. The only explanation given for the invasion is that Martians may have been living at the center of the Earth for the past 8,000 years and they're not happy with the way we're treating it. The special effects are laughable and consists of someone waving a red light around or setting off red smokebombs. The brief glimpses of the flying saucer reminds one of a modified hubcap. (To add insult to injury, the Genesis video box shows the Starship Enterprise from the STAR TREK series as the attacking alien ship!) The acting is amateurish, the sound (by H.G. Lewis regular Ray Sager) is tinny and the music (including stolen riffs from "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly") is atrocious. For more on badfilm director Rebane, see BLOOD HARVEST, THE GAME and THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW reviews. INVASION FROM INNER EARTH (aka THE SELECTED) is about as much fun as stepping on a rusty nail. And as painful, too. A Genesis Home Video Release. Not Rated, but nothing objectionable. Why bother? NOTE: Platinum Productions released this film under the title HELL FIRE in 1991. The description on the box would lead you to believe that it is actually a retitling of the 1987 film PRIMAL SCREAM but it is wrong. It also cuts out the entire finale of the film! It's a dupey picture and not worth your time or money. Avoid all versions at all costs!!!

JUNGLE HEAT (1988) - An Indonesian jungle cannibal flick starring Peter "Rambu" O'Brian! The film opens with archaeologist Albert (Charles Kaufman) leading a small group of scientists (including his wife and small daughter, Jessica) into the jungle looking for ancient artifacts. Their guide, Smith (Michel Banctel), has just stolen a fortune in diamonds from an angry native tribe, so Albert chases him into the jungle to retrieve the diamonds and return them to the tribe. The natives kill everyone at Albert's base camp except for little Jessica, who they take back to their village for human sacrifice. Meanwhile, Albert has caught up with Smith and a gunfight erupts, where Smith is killed and falls off a cliff with the diamonds and a seriously injured Albert stumbles into the jungle crying out for his wife and daughter. When the witch doctor is struck down by lightning and explodes (!) trying to kill Jessica with a phosphorous blade, the natives look at it as a sign from their god and make Jessica their new queen. Years later, when Albert has died a lonely, crazy man, his diary is discovered, which contains a map to the fortune in diamonds. Lola (Alba Fuad) and her lover, John (Johann Saimima), have possession of the diary and hire soldier of fortune Peter (Peter O'Brian) to guide them to the diamonds, unaware that evil Dutch businessman Nick (Didier Hamel) wants the diary. Nick's men kidnap Lola, which leads to a car chase where Peter and John crash their car and Peter chases them on foot to a train station (where a small gun battle erupts), but the bad guys get away with Lola. Nick forces Lola to lead him and his men to the treasure (he drags her behind a canoe in crocodile-infested waters until she agrees), but Peter and John are just a couple of steps behind them (Peter and John watch in the bushes as two cannibals cripple one of their own and let a leopard feed on him). Lola escapes from Nick when he and his men are captured by a headhunting cannibal tribe and brought to their village. Peter and John find Lola and they continue on their destination to the diamonds, while the cannibals begin decapitating and devouring Nick's mates (Nick avoids the same fate by showing the cannibals how to use pistols and shotguns!). After taking an unexpected ride over a waterfall, another tribe of natives captures Peter, John and Lola, the same tribe now presided over by a fully-grown Jessica, who is now called Mozizi. After Peter cures one of the tribe's sick children, Mozizi (who is now a blonde and buxom woman) takes a shine to Peter, which upsets tribal member Mogos (Advent Bangun; THE HUNGRY SNAKE WOMAN - 1987), who has had his eyes on her for many years. This leads to a battle to the death between Peter and Mogos, which ends with neither dying and Peter marrying Mozizi in a native ceremony. The honeymoon is short-lived when Nick and the cannibals invade the village with Mogos' help. This leads to a final battle between Peter and Mogos (there will be a death this time), while John and Nick fight it out next to a cursed pool containing a fortune in diamonds and jewels. Yes, it is all as strange as it sounds!  Even though this is a badly-dubbed mess (whoever dubs Peter O'Brian is at least two pitches too high), director Ratno Timoer (THE DEVIL'S SWORD - 1984; REVENGE OF NINJA - 1984; THE BLIND WARRIOR - 1985) and screenwriter Darto Joned (THE WARRIOR - 1981; THE SNAKE QUEEN - 1982) pack in enough craziness for a dozen films, including gunfights, car chases, gory shots of cannibalism, topless native women, arrow and spear impalements, a ride over a waterfall and plenty of decapitations. The fact that Lola is such a repugnant cunt throughout the film only adds to the fun. She's not much of a heroine in the traditional sense, as she screams out orders, squashes frogs with her hands, pushes native children around for stealing her bag of cigarettes and makeup (!) and generally makes every situation more tense than it needs to be. Peter O'Brian (THE STABILIZER - 1984; THE INTRUDER - 1986) gets the lion's share of the bad dialogue, though, and listening to him scream out, "You dumb fucking cocksucker fuck!", while fighting Advent Bangun to the death reminds us why we watch these Indonesian action flicks in the first place. This is as far from "realism" as one can get. Recommended on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. Also starring Piet Burnama, Herman Saren Sudiro, Yani Timoer, Harun Syarief and Joseph Hungan. Produced by Gope T. Samtani for Rapi Films, Indonesia's premiere purveyors of sleazy entertainment. Never available on home video in the U.S.; the print I viewed was sourced from a Greek-subtitled VHS tape. Not Rated.

THE LOST EMPIRE (1983) - Fun adult fantasy from genre hack Jim Wynorski, his first directorial effort (He's still cranking out films up to this day, either using his real name or such pseudonyms as "Jay Andrews", "H.R. Blueberry", "J.R. Mandish" or "Jamie Wagner"). An ancient race of superhumans called the Lemurians have put all their powers into two jewels called The Eyes Of Avatar (Hmmm...I wonder if James Cameron ever saw this?) and have separated them for thousands of years. Legend says that whomever finds the two jewels and joins them together will gain all the superpowers of the Lemurian race. The film opens with three black-clad ninjas (with cobra patches on their chests) breaking into a Chinese jewelry store and trying to dislodge one of the Eyes Of Avatar from a statue in the store, killing the proprietor with a throwing star and then doing battle with three cops, where everyone is seemingly killed. Or are they? We then switch to black leather-wearing Police Inspector Angel Wolfe (Melanie Vincz), who rides-in on a motorcycle and kills three gang members who are holding a bunch of school children hostage in a classroom. She and her lover, FBI agent Rick Stanton (Paul Coufos; FOOD OF THE GODS PART 2 - 1989), then rush to the hospital, where Angel's brother, police officer Rob Wolfe (PHANTASM's Bill Thornberry) is hanging on to his life by a thread. Rob was one of the cops involved in the jewelry store massacre and after handing-over one of the throwing stars to Angel (and telling her, "The Devil...he exists!), he passes-out after saying, "Find 'em and get 'em!" Rick recognizes the throwing star as something that belongs to "international terrorism, mass murder and a legend of supernatural horror that goes back over 200 years" (Please, tell us more!). Rick relates the story of Lee Chuck (PHANTASM's Angus Scrimm), also known as "Satan's Hatchetman", who sold his soul to the Devil for immortality, but in order to stop him from aging, he must send his Master one human soul every 24 hours (Lee Chuck has reportedly been seen at every major disaster in the last century, including the Chicago Fire, the sinking of the Titanic, the bombing of Hiroshima, the Jonestown Massacre, etc). Without hesitation, Angel buys Rick's story, so they go to the jewelry store to look for clues. She meets famed oriental detective Charles Chang (Art Hern), who tells Angel and Rick that Lee Chuck already has one of the Eyes Of Avatar in his possession and is looking for the second one. What no one (including Angel) knows is that the second Eye is in Angel's purse (!) and when Angel is told that her brother has died, she decides to travel to an uncharted island ruled by Dr. Sin Do (who is actually Lee Chuck in disguise) to get revenge, but not before picking up Native American friend Whitestar (Raven De La Croix) and female prisoner Heather (Angela Aames) to accompany her on the trip. Complications arise when Dr. Sin Do's head henchman, Koro (Robert Tessier; STARCRASH - 1979; NIGHTWISH - 1989), begins training the women to become assassins (first by putting them through a lot of topless medical procedures) and Rick discovers that Angel forgot to bring her purse with her (which sets-up a funny gay gag) and then he discovers then Eye inside. The Eye imbues Rick with the knowledge he needs to assist Angela and her two top-heavy friends to defeat Lee Chuck and keep the Lemurians' secret safe in the finale.  This is a fun, low-budget fantasy which is akin to watching those old serials of yesteryear, with the added incentive of plenty of female nudity and bloody violence. Sure, the dialogue is corny and the action scenes low-rent, but THE LOST EMPIRE is one of those films that gets under your skin and infects your bloodstream from the very first frame (which happens to be an extreme close-up of a woman's ample cleavage!). Director/producer/screenwriter Jim Wynorski (CHOPPING MALL - 1986; SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE II - 1990; SORCERESS - 1994) throws everything at the screen to see what sticks, including cheesy matte paintings and miniature models, insensitive Native American jokes, robotic spiders, a pet gorilla, a giant Death Ray (that's UL listed!), cheap opticals, bad martial arts fights and some Peckinpah-inspired slow-motion violence. While a lot of it falls flatter that a pancake (some of the dialogue is groan-inducing), there is still plenty here to keep viewers entertained, especially the line-up of cameos, which includes Kenneth Tobey, Angelique Pettyjohn, Gary Goodrow, Linda Shayne, Tom Rettig and the unforgettable Blackie Dammit (the father of Red Hot Chili Pepper's lead singer Anthony Kiedis) as Prager, a rape-happy police officer-turned-Lee Chuck disciple who gets a laser castration in the finale before burning to death (The name "Lee Chuck" is an amalgam of the names Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris). So, if your tastes run towards good-looking women in various states of undress, a shameless sense of juvenile humor and graphic violence, you could do a lot worse than THE LOST EMPIRE. Also starring Anita Merritt, Annie Gaybis, Gary Don Cox, Thomas Rosales and Rick Barker (also the Stunt Coordinator). Be aware that some prints, including the one released on VHS by Lightning Video, are shorn of some nudity and violence. My print was sourced from an unedited Dutch-subtitled VHS tape. Not available on DVD in the United States. Rated R.

MAD AT THE MOON (1992) - Some video stores will try to pass this off as a horror film. It's not. It is actually a tale of sexual repression and suppression in the Old West by director Martin Donovan of APARTMENT ZERO (1988), an unusual black comedy that won critical appraisal. Mary Stuart Masterson plays Mary, an opera-loving western gal, who accepts a marriage proposal from James (Stephen Blake) after being spurned by James' half-brother Miller (Hart Bochner), whom Mary really loves. Mary refuses to make love to James. As a matter of fact, she won't even let him touch her. One morning she discovers James boarding up the windows. He tells her to stay in the house, lock the door behind him and not to let him in no matter what he says or does. It seems James suffers from "moon sickness", a disease that causes him to go crazy like a wolf when the moon is full. When Mary experiences James' mental transformation (the physical transformation is minimal), she becomes terrified and moves back to town. Her mother (Fionnula Flanagan) strikes up a bargain with Miller: He is to stay with Mary at James' house that one day a month the moon is full to serve as her protector. This leads to much sexual tension between the three parties. The finale shows that the love of a good woman can cure what ails you. This is a slow-moving (it crawls sometimes), though atmospheric, period film. Donovan photographs the film using the natural light available, giving the film a realistic tone. The sexual angle is also realistic for the time period. Back then, it was a woman's place to stay with her husband no matter what the problem (If only my first wife followed that code!). It would have been unthinkable to get a divorce. A bullet in the head would have been a better choice (Now why didn't I think of that?). Hart Bochner can also be seen in Donovan's APARTMENT ZERO as well as TERROR TRAIN (1980) and SUPERGIRL (1984). Cec Verrell of Cirio Santiago's SILK (1986) and EYE OF THE EAGLE (1987) plays a barroom prostitute here. Daphne Zuniga (THE FLY 2) has a cameo role as James' mother during the black and white flashback sequences. MAD AT THE MOON is a well made film but it is not to everyone's taste. A Republic Pictures Home Video Release. Rated R.

MAGIC CURSE (1977) - When his uncle's plane crashes somewhere in the jungles of Borneo, nephew Lin Wen Ying (Jason Pai Piao; BRUTAL SORCERY - 1986) flies to Borneo by helicopter, grabs a few native guides and heads into the jungle to search for his uncle, who was carrying a fortune in jewels on the plane. They run into a tribe of lepers and the guides run away in fear, forcing Lin Wen Ying to kill a few of the attacking lepers with his shotgun. It turns out that their leprosy was caused by a magic curse put on them by high priest Abdullah and only death by an outsider will release the curse (One of the dying lepers reverts back to his normal human form, tells Lin Wen Ying the whole story and then begs for one final shotgun blast to finish him off, which Lin obliges). Abdullah is the high priest of the Snake Tribe, who periodically sacrifice nubile young virgins to the Snake God, while their priestess, Filona (Pinky DeLeon), watches unapprovingly. Abdullah has the hots for virgin tribal girl Sophia and when he sees that she is about to lose her cherry to tribe member Chow Ming, he performs a magic ritual where Sophia turns into a vampire and bites off Chow Ming's penis, killing him (Just as she bites it off, the camera switches to a tribe member peeping on the couple as he bites into a banana!). Lin Wen Ying witnesses Sophia committing suicide after waking up from her trance and seeing what she has done, so he runs over to her and all she says is "Abdullah!" before she dies (To which Lin replies, "Him again?"). When Lin asks members of the Snake Tribe if they have seen his uncle and the jewels, he gets an arrow in his shoulder for his troubles. He escapes and is found unconscious by Filona and some handmaidens (who we see frolicking buck-naked in a pond with some surprising full-frontal nudity), she nurses him back to health and they fall in love. Now here is where it gets weird. Filona tells Lin that the Snake Tribe witnessed his uncle's plane crash and Abdullah stole the jewels from his uncle's corpse. Filona, who doesn't approve of Abdullah's magic or his virgin sacrifices, shields Lin from Abdullah, but once Abdullah finds out Filona is in love with Lin, he fashions a voodoo doll from Lin's pillowcase (!) and puts a magic curse on him, which Filona counters using her magic powers. Lin leaves the jungle and promises to come back, but just to make sure he does, Filona puts a magic curse on his lips, telling him if he kisses any other girls while he is away, they will die a horrible death and he must return to the jungle within a year to marry her. This leads to a whole lot of trouble for Lin once he returns to civilization and it's best left to the viewers to witness for themselves. Needless to say, Lin forgets about his promise to Filona rather quickly (What do you want? He's a man!), which leads to death, destruction and plenty of snakes. Will Lin learn to keep it in his pants before more women meet their maker in horrible fashions?   This Hong Kong Production (partially filmed in the Philippines), co-directed and co-written by Tommy Loo-Chung (actually Lu Chin Ku; THE BLACK DRAGON [1974] and TIGER OVER WALL [1980]) and To Man Po (a.k.a. "Lee Tso Nam"; EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER [1976] and THE TATTOO CONNECTION [1978]), is a crazy combination of fantasy and martial arts genres with plenty of fighting, gore and nudity. While not as outrageous as BLACK MAGIC (1975), you have to give points to MAGIC CURSE for making Lin such a horndog, even though he knows there's a curse on his lips. He picks up women at bars and parties, beds them immediately and then the women die horribly shortly thereafter (they hallucinate they are being attacked by hordes of snakes, making the die from fright, heart attack or falling down a staircase). Lin simply moves on to the next woman, telling himself that their deaths were merely coincidences! Particularly hilarious is that during these lovemaking sessions, brassy lounge or jazz music plays on the soundtrack, which makes it sound like some cheap porn film. The plot of the film is all over the place, opening up in a bowling alley, then switching to the jungles of Borneo (the bloodiest section of the film; with human sacrifices, stabbings, impalements, bloody magic rituals and, of course, the penis-biting), then back to civilization and, finally, back to the jungle again, where a cop returns with Lin to make sure his story about magic curses is true. The finale, where Filona battles Abdullah (who walks around carrying a staff with a human skull attached at the top), contains fireballs, snakes and a funny shot where Abdullah catches a huge (and obviously Styrofoam) boulder right in the chest. As usual, this is a worthwhile Hong Kong effort for those who know what to expect from these kind of films: Non-stop craziness with a sense of the absurd. Also starring Peter Chen Lau, Tan Chia Bee, Mong Hu, Woung Eune Em, Nam Soon Joung, Hwang Kun Chi and Choi Mu Ung. Never legitimately available on home video in the U.S., the print I viewed was sourced from a widescreen English-dubbed British VHS tape. Not Rated.

MAGIC OF THE UNIVERSE (1987) - Quirky and outlandish supernatural fantasy from the Philippines that is full of strange characters and wild set designs. Circus magician Professor Jamir (Michael DeMesa) performs the same magic trick that he does every night in front of an audience: He makes his young daughter Freza (Sunshine) disappear from a wooden trunk and then reappear in a puff of smoke. Only this time, when the puff of smoke comes, his daughter is nowhere to be found. Not knowing where his daughter went, Jamir brings his assistants, wife Lovina (Tanya Gomez) and young chubby boy Bojok (Tom Tom), to a prophet named Ahura (Turko Cervantes) to discover just where Freza went. Ahura uses his black magic talents (which includes cutting the head off a live monkey and making the trio taste it's brains before Ahura slurps it down in one gulp!) to locate Freza and begins talking in Freza's voice saying. "Daddy, Mommy, save me!" Lamir, Lovina and Bojok then travel to the next town to perform his magic act (Hey, the show must go on!), but when Jamir performs a magic trick involving swords (to a very sparse, unappreciative audience), all three disappear into the same netherworld as Freza, yet only Lovina is reunited with her daughter while Jamir and Bojok must go on a long, arduous trek to save them. Lovina and Freza are being kept in a cage by the evil, big pulsating-foreheaded  Mikula (Armida Siguion-Reyna), an old hag that was cursed by Jamir's grandfather Lolo Omar (also played by DeMesa) to live eternally and never experience the pleasure of bearing children. Mikula has kidnapped Freza and Lovina to lure Jamir, the last male in his family line, into a trap to kill him and lift the curse. Lolo Omar appears as a ghost to warn his grandson about the troubles ahead and tells Jamir that the medallion he wears around his neck (a gift from his deceased father) will protect him and begin to glow when he is near the "Regalia", an object Jamir will need to defeat Mikula. As Jamir and Bojok search for the Regalia, they will encounter many weird characters on their trip, some who want to help them and some who were sent by Mikula to stop them. Jamir and Bojok are captured by a tribe of pygmy cannibals (It just wouldn't be a Filipino film without dwarves, would it?), but Jamir astounds them with his magic tricks and they become friends. Bojok steps into the woods to take a shit and is captured by Mikula's ogres (giant pig-faced creatures with horns in the middle of their foreheads), who imprisons him with Lovina and Freza. Jamir is now on his own, as Mikula and her menagerie of monsters party and dance in a cave (in a scene that defies description; try imagining the STAR WARS cantina scene as seen through the eyes of a junkie going through withdrawal). Bojok is forced to fight a sharp-clawed female demon while Mikula watches, which affords Lovina and Frenza time to escape. Will Jamir find the Regalia in time to save his family and destroy Mikula? Will I ever stop being amazed by these Filipino fantasies? I hope not!  While nothing more than a twisted take-off of Alice In Wonderland, director Tata Esteban (ALAPAAP - 1984; a.k.a. CLOUDS) and scripter Grace Hill Serrano add so much looniness, strange creatures and superb set designs (Mikula's lair is an amazing amalgam of colorful lighting, fog and inventive designs) to make this a trip worth taking. While this is indeed a fantasy, this is not a film for children's eyes, since monkey brain-eating, bloody deaths and intense situations (including child endangerment and cannibalism) runs rampant here. Particularly effective is the sequence where the escaped Lovina and Freza  are saved from a swamp creature (Ricky Sujede) by Arbutus (Filipino film staple Dick Isreal) and brought back to his camp, where he introduces them to his wife, Madera (Odette Khan), who is slowly being turned to stone by a curse place on her by Mikula. When Mikula recaptures Lovina and Freza, she punishes Arbutus by speeding-up Madera's curse. It's very unpleasant to watch, but very effective. There are also many strange creature effects on view, including the rubbery Globo (imaging the floating head in INVADERS FROM MARS [1953] on a $1.99 budget), who acts like Mikula's crystal ball, and other assorted monsters (Mikula herself, with her incredible throbbing brain, is an incredible sight), most played by actors and stuntmen in full body makeup, store-bought costumes or latex masks. There's also plenty of optical work, including laser beams shooting out of people's eyes; the Regalia (nothing but a magic wand with a tassle attached to it!) shooting electrical charges into Mikula's head (making it explode); as well as an explosive finale. How come fantasies like this are never made in the U.S.? I think out child labor laws play a big part with it. Also known as MONSTER OF THE UNIVERSE. Also starring Rex Roldan, Sonny Erang, Liza Lorena, Gina Alajar, Rene Johnson, Nunong De Andres and Bobby Beso. Be aware that the English-dubbed widescreen print used by BCI on the DVD for both their Eastern Horror Vol. 3 (a double feature with COUNTER DESTROYER [1988]) and Eastern Horror Advantage Collection 10 Movie Set was sourced from a Japanese VHS tape with the Japanese subtitles matted out, forcing the print to lose 25% of it's picture information (all on the bottom of the frame). A BCI Eclipse Release. Not Rated.

MARK OF THE SCORPION (1986) - Another cheesy Italian RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK rip-off. This one takes place in West Sahara during 1936 and finds tomb raider Phil Stone (Andy J. Forest; SCANDAL IN BLACK - 1990; HUNT FOR THE GOLDEN SCORPION - 1991) stealing a priceless serpentine ring off the corpse of some long-dead princess in a snake-filled tomb. Hard-up for money, Phil tries to pawn the ring to a desert shiek, but after witnessing another thief having his hand chopped-off for stealing a necklace from another tomb, he has second thoughts and instead loses the ring when he uses it as collateral during a street wager, where he and another person stick their hands in a box containing a poisonous snake and only one person will survive. Phil wins the bet but, unfortunately, is arrested before he can collect and is carted off to prison. Phil was formerly the leader of "The Scorpions", a group of freedom fighters who, besides Phil, have all been killed (The police captain shows Phil his collection of scorpion tattoos, all cut from the bodies of Phil's dead comrades!). The sickly prison warden, Fontaine (Paul Muller; LADY FRANKENSTEIN - 1971), makes a deal with Phil: If he can find the fabled "Cleopatra's Treasure", he will pardon Phil as well as split the treasure 50/50. Phil agrees to the deal and, together with fellow prisoner Johnson (Danilo Mattei; a.k.a. "Brian Redford" of CANNIBAL FEROX - 1981), sets off on a journey to find the treasure, with sadistic guard Sergeant Kemal (Mohamed Attifi), an old enemy of Phil's, dogging their every move. Did I forget to mention that Phil and Johnson never have to leave the prison to find the treasure? It seems it's located somewhere in a mine located directly beneath the prison. Phil manages to con Warden Fontaine into furloughing him to collect more info on the location of the treasure (and some scuba gear), but the warden manages to slip Phil some slow-acting poison to make sure he returns within twelve hours to receive the antidote. When Warden Fontaine suddenly dies and Sergeant Kemal takes over (he begins shooting prisoners in the back for no reason at all), Phil and Johnson must find the treasure and escape the prison before Kemal and his flunkies flush them out. If you were like me, you would have quit caring about 90 minutes ago.  This little-seen action adventure contains a lot of bloody violence, including dismemberments, stabbings, shootings, bloody ball-grabbing and even force-feeding a man a live rat (!), yet the film still manages to be an exercise in tedium. Director/co-scripter Massimo Pirri (FATAL FIX - 1980) manages to mishandle every opportunity at action and suspense, always zigging when he should have zagged (not to mention continually betraying the 1936 time period, especially the distinctly 1980's Jeep that Phil uses in his twelve hour furlough from prison). The main problem, though, is the character of Sergeant Kemal. He thoroughly makes Phil's life in prison a living hell, even after Phil agrees to help Warden Fontaine locate the treasure. It seems to me that all of Kemal's savagery could have been stopped immediately if Phil would have just mentioned it to Fontaine. If you like treasure hunting movies, you're in for a disappointment here, because the search for Cleopatra's Treasure is saved for the film's final fifteen minutes and contains some of the lamest boobytraps ever committed to the screen. A five year-old could spot them a mile away. These are not the life-threatening traps that we would expect from the likes of Cleopatra (I had to laugh when a single stalagmite falls and Phil says to Johnson, "That old girl really knew her traps!"). It should come as no surprise that Cleopatra's Treasure is encased in a object that looks exactly like the Ark of the Covenant in RAIDERS and when Phil opens it, all it contains is a scroll (which immediately blows out of his hands) and a single gold object. Jeez, that Cleopatra is one stingy bitch! The majority of this film is nothing more than a tepid prison drama with plenty of overt homosexual subtext. Save your valuable time and pass this one by. Also starring Dannys Cole, Milly D'Abbraccio, Abdelsalam Sadoo, Leslie Thomas and Antonio Scarano. Released on VHS from Imperial Entertainment Corp. and not available on DVD. Not Rated.

THE MASTER DEMON (1988/1996) - There's not enough ice in the world to cover-up the stink that is THE MASTER DEMON. Scientists will be dissecting this film for decades to come in hopes of trying to figure out how to remove that awful smell that oozes out of VCR and DVD players once unknowing viewers press the "Play" button on their remotes. Gallons of tomato juice will be used with no effect, thousands of cans of Lysol will give up and call it a day and millions of Ziploc bags will retreat like the French Army. Will anything stop this stench? Our only hope may be to collect every copy of this film and bury them in a mile-deep hole at the center of the Arctic ice caps (right next to THE BLOB), but God only knows if doing that would cause the Earth to tilt off its axis and destroy mankind. Yes, THE MASTER DEMON is that bad, making shit films like SAMURAI COP (1991) seem like a breath of fresh air. The film begins with an epic battle (if epic battles were poorly photographed martial arts fights filmed by a crackhead holding a camera) between the White Warrior (producer Eric Lee in a ridiculous white wig) and the Master Demon (Gerald Okamura; CAGE II - 1994), where a mortally wounded White Warrior cuts off one of the Master Demon's hands and stumbles off with it, delivering it to a bald monk who performs a ritual over it and sticks it in a box, while an offscreen narrator tells us the world will be safe as long as the Master Demon doesn't find his hand and reattach it to his body (I've simplified the narrator's comments because he spouts nonsense that they wouldn't even put in fortune cookies). Cut to the present, where Tong Lee (Eric Lee again) wakes up from a bad nightmare and finds the White Warrior's "Sword of the Furious" impaled (and smoking) on his front lawn. He picks it up and is instantly appointed the savior of the Earth. We the switch over to a museum next to the La Brea Tar Pits (actually the George C. Page Museum, but I doubt they would lend their name to this film), where Chinese philanthropist Qua Chang (Gerald Okamura again) donates the box with the Master Demon's hand as an exhibit for permanent display, only to have it stolen and fenced for $1,500. Qua Chang summons evil spirit Medusa (female bodybuilder Kay Baxter Young, who died in a car crash in 1988, shortly after principal photography of this film ended) to retrieve the box and, after snapping Qua Chang's neck for disturbing her restful slumber (!), she goes about killing everyone who touches the box, beginning with the thief (who also gets his neck snapped). The black miniskirt-wearing Medusa then goes after Link The Fence (Bob Roberts), but he manages to escape (with a huge knife impaled in the middle of his forehead, courtesy of Medusa) and hands the box (Ha! A play on words!) to private dick Cameron Massey (Steve Nave) before he dies (All Cameron can say is, "How am I going to get these stains out of this rug?"). Medusa soon appears to take control of the box, but before she can kill Cameron with her squad of ghostly (and badly made-up) kung-fu fighters, Tong Lee crashes through a window and defeats them all (in hilariously inept fashion), while Medusa disappears with the dismembered hand and rejoins it to the body of the Master Demon. Cameron (who cracks a BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS [1946] joke) joins forces with Tong Lee and police detective Wayne Bersecker (Sid Campbell) to get to the bottom of all this nonsense, while the Master Demon, Medusa and an army of martial arts fighters with black shoe polish on their faces try to kill them, especially Tong Lee, who is now the reincarnated spirit of the White Warrior. What follows next are some of the lamest martial arts fights in Grade Z film history (making the fight scenes in ROBOT NINJA look like ENTER THE DRAGON in comparison), mixed with humor even a drooling retard wouldn't find funny. This epic piece of crap was co-directed by Sherman Oaks Experimental College film instructor Samuel Oldham (who also wrote the screenplay), who shot the film proper in 1988, and stunt/fight coordinator Art Camacho (who also directed such Pepin/Merhi productions such as THE POWER WITHIN [1995] and RECOIL [1998], as well as such recent actioners like SOFT TARGET [2006] and HALF PAST DEAD 2 [2007]), who added some narration and extra fight scenes in 1996 for its official home video release. This film has all the earmarks of an ultra-cheap production, including: bad sound recording; hilarious post-synch dubbing (where we not only hear the characters' thoughts, we also hear plenty of "Oh, shit!" remarks whenever our heroic trio are attacked); a music score that sounds like it was recorded on a Casio keyboard; dialogue that harkens back to the Charlie Chan films of the 30's & 40's ("Silence, you son of a white dog!"); some extremely cheap gore (including torturing a man with an electric drill to his testicles and then ripping-off his face and eating it!); and dozens of martial arts fights that could have been performed better by a bunch of pre-teens in their backyard with a super 8mm camera. Add all this together and what you have is either one of the worst martial arts/horror films ever released on home video or one of the biggest put-ons in film history. I'm leaning towards the former. THE MASTER DEMON is so bad, it crosses the line from awful to demented entertainment. Bad film fans should eat this one up. Also starring Ava Cadell as Jan, Cameron's big-breasted secretary. Originally released on VHS by an outfit called Rising Sun Productions and available on a Dutch-subtitled DVD. Not Rated.

THE MINES OF KILIMANJARO (1986) - Another Italian knock-off of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, also set during the rise of the Nazi empire. When Professor Thomas Smith (a badly-dubbed Christopher Connelly) is murdered by a blond-haired German with a gun hidden in a cane, it leads the Professor's associate, Dr. Ed Barkley (Tobias Hoesl), on a trip halfway around the world to Africa, where he searches for "The Secret of Africa", a hidden area on Mt. Kilimanjaro filled with diamonds that is guarded by a tribe of headhunters. While in Mombasa, Dr. Barkley is kidnapped by Chinese crimelord Ti-Ling, who threatens him with torture (he watches as Ti-Ling's men force feed a prisoner live mice through a funnel) if he doesn't reveal the location of the diamonds. Dr. Barkley is saved from certain doom by Dutchman Rolf (Gordon Mitchell) and agrees to lead a safari through the jungles of Africa to look for the diamonds. Along on the safari is Eva Kilbrook (Elena Pompei), who seems to be looking for more than the diamonds. After some badly-edited stock footage of African wildlife (it's very obvious, as the film stocks don't match), the group camps out for the night and someone tries to kill Dr. Barkley, but fails. They do manage to kill all the porters and guides, though, as Dr. Barkley and Eva are captured by the Leopard Men, a tribe of cannibals. They eventually escape and, for some unknown reason (to me, anyway), Rolf and Ti-Ling join forces and are looking for Dr. Barkley, but manage to miss him at nearly every turn. The blond-haired Nazi is also on the trail, keeping an eye on the action at a safe distance (he obviously knows something we don't know). Dr. Barkley (who is wounded by a poison arrow) and Eva are then rescued by a group of black-robed monks who have a photograph that was taken in 1917. It shows that the late Prof. Smith was once a German soldier who ventured to the Secret of Africa and actually found it. Now, Dr. Barkley and Eva will retrace Prof. Smith's steps to Mt. Kilimanjaro. They meet an all-female tribe, headed by The Empress (Francesca Ferre), who wants Dr. Barkley's seed so they can replenish the tribe. More hijinks and deaths follow to the unexciting conclusion.  Highly racist to the extreme (the Chinese are portrayed by white actors who say "ahh-so!" and can't pronounce their "r"s) as well as offensive to all of Africa (all blacks are portrayed as cowards or bloodthirsty cannibals), director/screenwriter Mino Guerrini (THE THIRD EYE - 1966) can't seem to make up his mind if he wants to make an adventure film like RAIDERS or a gore film in the vein of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. While there is gore present (a hand chopped off, arrow piercings, a bat impaled on a hook), it's apparent some of the more extreme gore has been edited out, such as when the Leopard Men draw-and-quarter a fellow native or when Ti-Ling force feeds a prisoner live mice. The dubbing is also highly dubious (only Gordon Mitchell seems to have redubbed his own voice) and there's some glaring mistakes in the timeline, such as when a 1980's Land Rover can be spotted in what is supposed to be 1930's Africa. None of it is the least bit exciting (it's all rather statically filmed) and the reveal in the finale (the Nazis have occupied The Secret of Africa for the past 15 years and have been mining the diamonds to finance the Nazi cause) is one of the lamest surprises I have ever witnessed. German TV star Tobias Hoesl makes a bland and emotionless hero (He's no Harrison Ford. Hell, he's no David Warbeck!) and there's no nudity, not even any topless natives. What's an African adventure without topless natives? Save your money and time for a real adventure. Also known as AFRIKANTER. Also starring Al Cliver, Matteo Corsini, Josette Martial, Kit Dickinson and Peter Berling. An Imperial Entertainment Corp. Home Video Release. Not Rated.

THE PHANTOM EMPIRE (1987) - Infectious low-budget fantasy adventure from the prolific Fred Olen Ray, which plays like a condensed version of the serials from the 30's & 40's, only with more gore and female flesh. The film opens with a couple (and their dog) on a picnic being attacked by a ridiculously fake-looking monster, who disembowels the dog and rips off the guy's head before the girl kills it by beaning it over the head with a cooler. A woman named Danae Chambers (Susan Stokey; STAR SLAMMER - 1987) hires Cort Eastman (Ross Hagen; ALIENATOR - 1989) and Eddy Colchilde (Dawn Wildsmith; HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS - 1988), the owners of C&C Salvage, to explore the cave that the monster came out of because she believes, based on the fortune in unpolished jewels the monster was wearing around it's neck, that it came from the fabled lost city of R'Lyla. After obtaining a map of R'Lyla from Bill (Russ Tamblyn in a cameo), the only person known to actually have seen R'Lyla and live to tell about it (he ended up losing a leg, though), Cort, Eddy, Denae, archaeologist Andrew Paris (Jeffrey Combs; DEAD MAN WALKING - 1987) of Miskatonic University (!) and mineralogist Professor Strock (Robert Quarry; SPIRITS - 1991) enter the cave (actually Bronson Canyon, a location used for many horror films) and begin their journey. After bedding down for the night, the group are interrupted from their drinking and carousing by the sudden appearance of a mute babe in a bikini (Michelle Bauer; TOMB OF THE WEREWOLF - 2003) who is being chased by a bunch of mutated cannibals. They save the mute babe, but Danae is kidnapped by the cannibals, who tie her to a spit and begin slow-roasting her over a fire (She screams, "You won't like how I taste!"). Cort, Eddy and Andrew save her and the mute babe then leads the group to the entrance of her city (which is guarded by a laser-firing Robby The Robot from FORBIDDEN PLANET!). The city happens to be (surprise!) the lost civilization of R'Lyla and they are met at the entrance by the Alien Queen (Sybil Danning [THE TOMB - 1986] in a tight, bra-busting outfit) who, along with her tribe of all-female bikini-clad mutes, takes everyone prisoner. It seems the Alien Queen crash-landed there years ago and needs our motley group to mine the caves as slaves to retrieve the materials needed to repair her ship. She also has the hots for Andrew, but the mute girl he saved also like him, which sets up the conflict that will help our group escape in the finale. After finding diamonds that will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, they steal the Alien Queen's rocket car and successfully make it back to civilization, with the Alien Queen vowing revenge in a sequel that was never made.  While cheap to the point of poverty (the cannibals wear static rubber masks and there's dinosaur footage cribbed from PLANET OF DINOSAURS [1978]), director Fred Olen Ray (DEEP SPACE - 1987), working with a screenplay written by himself and T.L. Lankford, has infused the film with a sense of playfulness and humor (He reportedly shot this film in six days and it shows). Nothing is taken seriously, as no one is killed (besides the mutant cannibals) after the poor picnic guy is beheaded in the beginning. Most of the film is one bad burlesque joke after another, but Ray realizes this and plays the entire film as pure camp. The special effects (the ones that weren't borrowed from other films) are laughable but seem to be done that way on purpose to keep the spirit of the serial adventure films of the past (the forced perspective shots are a hoot, as is the FLASH GORDON-style rocket car the Alien Queen uses to travel through R'Lyla). The nudity is saved for the final third of the film, where we get to see Sybil Danning's exposed nipple when she gets into a fight with Ross Hagen and then Michelle Bauer trots around topless for a couple of minutes after getting into a catfight with one of her tribe members. The gore, on the other hand, comes in the beginning of the film with the extremely graphic beheading. The rest of the violence is strictly comic book level; just bloodless gunfights, a mutant being disintegrated by Robby The Robot's laser blasts and an explosion in the finale. THE PHANTOM EMPIRE is just goofy, mindless fun from beginning to end. Mr. Ray promised a sequel during the end credits, but it never materialized. This is basically a remake of the 1935 Gene Autrey 12-part serial with the same name. Made in 1987, but not released until 1989. Also starring Michael D. Sonye (the scripter of BLOOD DINER - 1987) and Victoria Alexander as the picnic couple. Originally released on VHS by Prism Entertainment and later released on DVD by Fred Olen Ray's label Retromedia Entertainment. Rated R.

QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC (1979) - During a Muslim wedding, someone puts the bride under a black magic spell, where she hallucinates that her husband-to-be is turning into a rotting zombie and her flower necklace is turning into a snake, which puts a serious crimp in the wedding ceremony. It also doesn't help that the wedding feast turns into a pile of maggots and a storm blows in from nowhere. The bride becomes a complete basket case (she imagines that snakes are everywhere) and the wedding is canceled. This all seems to benefit local peasant girl Murni (Suzzanna; THE SNAKE QUEEN - 1982), who was madly in love with the groom, Kohar, before he callously dumped her and decided the marry the daughter of a wealthy businessman. When the local witch doctor is mysteriously killed by some supernatural magic (his body is repeatedly slammed to the ground by some invisible force), he utters in his final breath, "The evil spirit comes from the west!" Kohar interprets this to mean that Murni is responsible, so he gathers all the townspeople to hunt down Murni (The only thing Murni is really responsible for is losing her virginity to Kohar, who promised to marry her after he popped her cherry). Kohar and the villagers capture Murni, burn down her house (killing her mother in the process) and drag her to the top of a mountain, where they throw her off a cliff ("One...two...three...away!"). Luckily, Murni lands in the arms of a black magician (W.D. Mochtar), who nurses her back to health and teaches her the finer points of the Black Arts. Murni becomes the Queen of Black Magic and uses her newfound powers to avenge her mother's death and make all those responsible pay with their lives, especially the dastardly Kohar. Pretty soon, villagers are being attacked by bees; breaking out in huge boils that explode in huge gushers of blood; swallowed under the ground and devoured by snakes; hung from trees by the neck; and, in one case, Murni steals an infant out of a cradle and breast feeds it, getting a huge sexual thrill from the experience! The appearance of a stranger in town named Permana may be just what the villagers need to battle Murni and her teacher. After Murni kills Kohar, she wants to stop the reign of terror, but her teacher won't let her (it's apparent he has an agenda). Things get weird when Murni and Permana fall in love, not knowing each other's true identities. As Permana gets the villagers to accept religion back into their lives, which lessens the black magician's powers, one villager spots Permana cavorting with Murni in the forest. Mistakenly thinking that Permana is in league with the Devil, the villagers may undo everything good Permana has brought into the village.  This is another wild and delirious fantasy film from Rapi Films, Indonesia's premiere supplier of filmed dementia. This is a sort-of second sequel to the 1975 Hong Kong horror film BLACK MAGIC (1975) and BLACK MAGIC 2 (1976; a.k.a. REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES), but director Liliek Sudjio and screenwriter Imam Tantowi (THE WARRIOR AND NINJA - 1985) give this film it's own unique spin, mixing religion and black magic as a metaphor for good against evil. This film is full of weird visuals, such as when the silhouette of Murni can be seen flying through the air (with the obvious help of a trampoline) against the backdrop of a full moon; Murni using black magic to force Kohar to rip off his own head (!) and then the head flies through the air biting villagers; the black magician's use of a voodoo doll to make the rich businessman's stomach swell-up to gigantic proportions; and the final attack on the village, where an unjustly deceived Murni and Permana face-off and family secrets are revealed. Expect fireballs, flying objects, toe-sucking and other strange sights. There's a lot of blood spilled here and a few shots of semi-nudity as Indonesian films tend to shy away from showing women's nipples. Even in the breast-feeding scene, we see the baby suckling on Murni's breast, but no nipple, yet this film finds clever ways to cover-up the naughty bits, by use of strategically-placed objects, blurred lenses or camera framing, making the viewer believe they are seeing more than they actually are. QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC is another winner from what seems like a never-ending supply of strange films from Indonesia. Also starring Teddy Purba, Sofia W.D., Alan Naury, Siska Widowati, Dorman Borisman, Doddy Sukma, Tizar Pyrbaya and I.M. Damsyik. Originally available on VHS from Twilight Video under the title BLACK MAGIC TERROR and available on widescreen DVD from Mondo Macabro. Not Rated.

THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS (1983) - Confusing Italian nonsense, originally titled THE ATLANTIS INTERCEPTORS and also known as ATLANTIS INFERNO, LES PREDATEURS DU FUTUR and THE LAST WARRIORS, from Ruggero Deodato, the director of the gut-munching classic CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979). Two mercenaries (the late Chris Connelly and Tony King) rescue a band of scientists from a floating platform hit by a tidal wave in the Pacific ocean. It seems the scientists were trying to raise a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine which is resting on what was the lost continent of Atlantis. Somehow, the sub's nuclear missiles have reanimated the populous of Atlantis, causing the island to resurface (complete with a bubble dome) with the inhabitants thirsty to kill any humans they come in contact with. Connelly and the group try to stay one step ahead of the Atlantidians, occaisonally meeting them head-to-head for some bloody contact. Eventually, Connelly and the group make it to the formerly submerged island and try to disarm the missiles. They also try to free a captured scientist (Marie Fields) who knows the secrets of making Atlantis the ruler of the world. They succeed and Atlantis once again sinks to the depths of the ocean. Accomplishing this feat has cost many lives. Who will survive? This filmed in the Philippines fantasy/actioner boasts some over-the-top effects (including a decapitation by electrical wire and an arrow in the mouth) and nice scenery, but the storyline is so confusing (especially in the finale) that you'll be scratching your head wondering what the hell it's all about. Another problem is the tendency to introduce new characters throughout the film just to have them killed off a few minutes later. Director Ruggero Deodato shows a sure hand in filming the action sequences but fumbles when it comes to the scenes that are strictly dialogue. The Italian screenwriters have a way of writing dialogue that murders the English language, especially when it comes to writing "hip" dialogue for black characters. Watch Lamberto Bava's DEMONS and other Italian genre films from the 80's to get a feel of what I mean. The black characters sound as if they stepped off a spaceship from some distant galaxy after they studied transmissions from some of the Amos 'n Andy radio and television broadcasts of the 40's & 50's. Uttering  such lines as "We best be finding a way to get outta here" and "Get your watermelon-smellin' puss outta my face" sets back the African-American progress nearly one hundred years. Yes, it is funny. But you have to remember that it was written to be spoken seriously and believably. This has always bothered me, even if I am not black. Oh, well. THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS plays like a modern-day version of the countless Italian MAD MAX rip offs. If you like those, you'll probably like this one. A Prism Entertainment Release. Not Rated.

RAPE (1976) - Badly dubbed Spanish supernatural tale. Frenchman Frank (Gil Vidal) and Spanish Roger (Rick Joss) decide to investigate the mysterious death of their friend Gene. They travel to a small Spanish town where they learn that Gene was seeing a girl named Maria (the single-monikered Nadiuska), whom the townspeople chased out of town for being a witch. Frank and Roger (who are amateur parapsychologists) go to Maria's deserted house and discover ancient Aztec symbols on the walls (they cannot be seen with the naked eye and can only be viewed when photographed) and record voices on tape that weren't heard originally. They finally locate Maria living in a mountain cabin with her father (director M.I. Bonns, using his first two names Miquel Iglesias). There they learn that Maria has strange supernatural powers. When her drunken father tries to rape her, windows mysteriously break and objects fly around. Maria cures a young boy's gangriene-infected leg. She has visions of Spanish Conquistadors. While under hypnosis, we learn that Maria is possessed by the Princess of Moctezuma, an ancient Aztec ruler whose people were slaughtered by the Conquistadors. The Princess was taken captive and fell in love with one of her captors. Maria's father goes crazy and burns down the cabin with himself and Maria in it. Frank and Roger find Maria's dead, but unburnt, body among the cinders. On their flight back to France, Frank and Roger discover that all their evidence has been erased. The photos and tapes have gone blank. Suddenly, they are approached by a stewardess who bears a striking resemblance to Maria. The End. Huh? Apparently something was lost in the translation. The only point of seeing this film, originally titled DESNUDA INQUIETUD ("Naked Restlessness"), is the disrobing of star Nadiuska. The rest of the film is a confusing mix of supernatural mumbo-jumbo, love story and flashbacks. Director M.I. Bonns also made the Paul Naschy werewolf film NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST (1975 - aka THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI and HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING), KILMA, QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS (1975) and others. Any one of these will give you more pleasure than RAPE. You'll feel raped if you expect a satisfying conclusion to this film. A Mogul Video Release. Not Rated.

THE SECRET OF THE INCAS' EMPIRE (1987) - In this Italian/Philippines co-production, bad guy Angel Lasky (Vassilli Karis; LEATHERNECKS - 1988) kills a professor to get his hands on a piece of a treasure map that will lead him to the location of a pre-Incan civilization. Unfortunately, the professor already gave his map piece to his female assistant Linda (Kelly London), with instructions to turn it over to Professor Rivera (Frank Vitale). Angel and his bad men try to obtain the map piece by kidnapping Linda, but Rivera's associate, Professor Clifton Bradbury III (Conrad Nichols; RUSH - 1983), saves her and they head out by helicopter to meet Rivera, who is located 300 miles inside a dense Colombian jungle (She says to Bradbury, "You're a good fighter, you know!" to which he replies, "I know. Arnold Schwarzenegger taught me."). When their helicopter is shot down by Angel, Bradbury and Linda must make the long, arduous trek to Rivera's camp any way they can. Luckily, Bradbury is very familiar with the area, but they still must contend with an assortment of dangerous people and situations, including a group of murderous thieves and would-be rapists, some revolutionaries, a couple of Incan natives (who both believe that Bradbury is the answer to some as-yet unknown predestined prophecy) and, of course, Angel and his men. Along the way, Linda learns from Bradbury that the map may prove that the Inca Empire and the civilization preceding it were visited by aliens in spaceships who were "fair-skinned and red-haired". Bradbury and Linda finally make it to Rivera's camp, only to discover Rivera dead (along with a bunch of birds), the victim of a fatal poison gas attack. They are then captured by Angel, who is actually working for the dastardly Professor Xristopoulos (director Gianfranco Parolini, using the name "J. Francis Scott"), but they manage to get away with help of some angry natives. The world's unluckiest couple then get caught in the middle of a piranha infested river, surrounded by a group of rapidly approaching crocodiles, but they are saved by trader Noah (Willy Morales; THE SISTERHOOD - 1987) and his obese wife Rose (Florence Carvajal; PAY OR DIE - 1979). Bradbury and Linda finally make it to the trap-filled underground city and discover that Rivera is still alive, but quite mad. After defeating his insane colleague, Bradbury finds proof that aliens did actually visit there and Linda is rewarded with a fortune in jewels, but the clever finale leaves both their fates up in the air (Literally. The last time we see them, they are hanging on a rapidly-breaking tree branch while suspended over a crocodile pit!).  This action adventure, directed/produced/co-written by Gianfranco Parolini (YETI: GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY [1977] and countless Peplum and Spaghetti Westerns of the 60's & 70's), using his frequent "Frank Kramer" pseudonym, is dumb fun if you try not to think too hard. The dubbed English dialogue is about as juvenile as it gets (especially when Bradbury has to suck poison out of Linda's ass), but the goofy situations and violence (which escalates as the film progresses) should keep most viewers reasonably entertained. At first, the film plays like some family-friendly adventure tale, but about the midway point it becomes quite violent, as people are riddled with bullets, blown up, impaled through the neck and heart with arrows, eaten by crocodiles, decapitated (one virgin girl has her head cut off in an ancient ritual and her decapitated head is attached to a rope and pulled to the top of a temple) or sliced open with swords. Other weird sights on view include Max Laurel (ZUMA - 1985; COP GAME - 1988) as the machete-toting leader of the pre-Inca civilization and Bradbury and Linda's final booby trapped excursion into the buried underground city, where they are attacked by snakes, bats and crocodiles that shoot laser beams from their mouths (!) and then meet the sole protector of the lost city, who wears a huge metal condor mask, shoots laser beams out of his eyes and plays an organ like he's the Phantom of the Opera! Of course, none of it makes an ounce of sense, but it's entertaining nonsense nonetheless. Also known as THE SECRET OF THE BURIED KINGDOM. Also starring Ann Karin, Steve Alcarado, Lyka Ugarte and John Peebes. Never legitimately available on U.S. home video (although it did get a Canadian VHS release from Astral Video); the version I viewed was sourced from a good-looking widescreen Japanese-subtitled VHS tape. Not Rated.

SHE (1983) - In this comical post-nuke adventure (set in the Year 23, After the Cancellation), merchants Tom (David Goss of HOLLYWOOD COP) and Dick (Harrison Muller) go on many adventures searching for Tom's sister Hari (Elena Wiedermann) after she is kidnapped by the evil Hector (Gordon Mitchell) and his band of mutants, known as the Norks. The only person who can help Tom and Dick locate the Nork village is man-hater She (Sandahl Bergman), the leader of an all-female tribe. She thinks men are only good for two things: Sex and fighting to the death. Men who meet her in either method always end up dead. She has sex with men and immediately kills them once she has had her way with them. She also goes through a yearly ritual where she fights a series of men (even a Frankenstein monster whose head explodes when she bites off one of his neck bolts!) and then takes a nude bath in a regeneration pool to heal her wounds. Prophecy says she will give up her man-hating ways when she falls in love with a man that will change her life. Tom and Dick kidnap She to help them locate Tom's sister, but immediately run into trouble when they are captured by chainsaw-wielding mutant mummies led by Kram (Cyrus Elias). They are tossed into a giant trash compactor, but are saved by She's all-female army. Surprisingly, She let's Tom and Dick go on their way but secretly follows close behind. She ends up saving Tom and Dick's ass when they run into a tribe of mutant vampires dressed as Romans during the time of Caesar (they wear cheap dimestore fangs and listen to 50's Doo-Wop music!). Next, She, her second in command Shandra (Quin Kessler), Tom and Dick feel the wrath of Godan (Gregory Snegoff), the telekenetic leader of a group of axe-carrying monks, who whip She and Shandra before Tom and Dick save them from certain deaths (including a painful body-stretching for Shandra [Dick says to her, "You look taller!"] and a psychic rape for She). Our fearless foursome next trek through a forest that emits a toxic fog and She, Shandra and Dick are taken prisoner by mad scientist Rabel (Donald Hodson) and his pink tu-tu wearing brute henchman Rudolph (Mario Pedone). They all manage to escape, make it to the Nork village and rescue Tom's sister, but another problem arises: If they don't take a stand now, the Norks will attack and wipe out She's people. They wait for the Norks on a bridge and hope to hold-off the Norks long enough until Shandra returns with reinforcements.  This goofy, off-the-wall fantasy adventure was directed and scripted by Israeli director Avi Nesher (TIMEBOMB - 1991; DOPPELGANGER - 1992) with his tongue firmly planted in cheek. Half the fun of watching this film is spotting the frequent sight gags on view. I especially enjoyed Tom's run-in with movie-quoting Xenon (David Traylor) on a bridge that leads to the Nork village. Xenon is so annoying, Tom chops him into pieces, but each piece turns into a separate Xenon and soon Tom is fighting a dozen Xenons (who, at one point, form a chorus line and high-step like the Rockettes!). There are many more visual treats on view (check out what's written on the boxes and crates during She's fighting ritual and pay close attention to the costumes the Norks wear) as well as imaginative (and funny) set pieces, including Godan's psychokinetic fighting ability, Hector's "Anyone wish to withdraw" speech and the Nork gladiator match in the finale. There's surprisingly very little nudity (just Sandahl Bergman's topless dip in the regeneration pool) and not much blood, although there is plenty of violence, including impalements, dry dismemberments (one arm-yanking scene is played strictly for laughs) and explosions. Rather than having a pat, "Happily ever after" ending, director Nesher chose to end it on a bittersweet note, which is truly refreshing. This is a fun, campy time for those looking for something a little off the beaten path. It's like THE WIZARD OF OZ on crack and has nothing to do with H. Rider Haggard's novel of the same name (even though it get an "Inspired By" credit), which has been made into several films over the years. Rick Wakeman (THE BURNING - 1980) composed the inventive music score and Avi Nesher also co-wrote most of the original songs. Eduard Sarlui and Helen Sarlui-Tucker (MONSTER DOG - 1985) were the Executive Producers. Also starring David Brandon, Andrew McLeay, Mary D'Antin and Laurie Sherman. A Lightning Video Release. Not Rated.

SHE WOLVES OF THE WASTELAND (1987) - Well, it's post-apocalypse time again and this time bacteriological wars have killed off all the men and only a handful of women survived. The hideously-mutated Reverend Mother (Sheila Howard, who has a ton of plastic tubing attached to her head) has plans of creating the perfect female race, so she sends her second-in-command, Cobalt (Persis Khambatta; NIGHTHAWKS - 1981; WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD - 1983), to find female specimens in the outlands to operate on and to kill those that don't meet the Reverend Mother's exacting criteria. When Keela (Peggy Sands; a.k.a. "Peggy Sanders" of LADY AVENGER [1988] infamy) steals the Reverend Mother's DNA formula (she's pregnant with a male child) and escapes into the desert, the Reverend Mother puts a bounty on her head and orders Cobalt to find her a living male subject so she can drain him of his energy and become powerful again. Keela finds a protector in "Santrapper" Phoenix (Kathleen Kinmont; THE ART OF DYING - 1991), a buxom female warrior (the film was originally titled PHOENIX THE WARRIOR) who is handy with firearms as well as swords. When Keela gives birth to the baby boy, which she names Skylar, The Reverend Mother instantly has a psychic link to it, but she is once again thwarted by Phoenix (They both share a past together). Five years pass and Skylar is now a young boy who is trained by Phoenix to be a great hunter. The trio search for safety in the legendary "Island In The Sea", but first they must walk through the Badlands, a desolate area inhabited by the Rezule, a tribe of TV-quoting mutants. When Skylar accidentally drops his toy car on their journey and it is brought back to the Reverend Mother, she is able to reconnect her psychic link to Skylar, so she sends Cobalt and her crew in dune buggies to capture him. The trio is helped by Guy (James H. Emery), the last living adult male (who escaped from the Reverend Mother's "seed pool"), but when Phoenix is captured by Cobalt and imprisoned (in a pen an armless person could break out of), Keela, Skylar and a reluctant Guy set out to rescue her. They save Phoenix from an arena fight presided over by Cobalt and head out into the Badlands, only to be captured by the Rezule, who turn Skylar and Guy over to the Reverend Mother. Can Phoenix and Keela escape and rescue the only two males left on Earth before the Reverend Mother drains them both of their energy? You, too, will feel drained after watching this. Drained of your will to live.  Oh, my. Where to begin? For starters, this early in-house production from Executive Producer David Winters and Producer Peter Yuval's Action International Pictures looks so impoverished, I doubt it could fill the shrunken belly of a starving Somalian child. Everything about this film is so cheap, from the stripper outfits the female extras wear; sets that look like they were constructed out of rotting lumber, tin roofing, sticks and backdrops made out of plastic drop cloths; fight scenes that look like they were choreographed by Stevie Wonder; women who have no idea how to hold a gun (some of the extras look utterly scared shitless when they fire their weapons); to the horrific acting of everyone involved (even old pros, like the late Khambatta and the beautiful Kinmont, don't even try here). Director/co-scripter Robert Hayes (SPY HIGH - 2001) must have skipped the Continuity 101 class in film school because the movie is a disjointed mess. Scenes begin and end for no discernable reason at all and some scenes, like the birth of Skylar, come out of nowhere, as the last time we saw Keela before the birth, she didn't even have a baby bump! Believe it or not, Hayes is now a well-respected cinematographer of low-budget genre films, including the god-awful WEREWOLF (1995) and SATANIC (2006). For a film about a world populated by busty, skimpily dressed females, there is precious little nudity, just a few topless shots here and there (but none by Kinmont, damn it!) to hold your interest. The screenplay, by Hayes and Dan Rotblatt, is generic post-nuke stuff (Cirio H. Santiago's THE SISTERHOOD [1987] covered the same territory much better), but I have to admit that when the tribe of mutant Rezule starts chanting the names of old TV shows during a sacrificial ritual ("Leave It To Beaver! Trapper John M.D.! Little House On The Prairie!"), it did bring a smile to my face. I can hardly recommend this film based on that one scene alone, so I won't. Also starring Nina Jaffe, Courtney Cauldwell, Laurie de Nuccio, Linda Santo and Skylar Corbett. Originally available on VHS (as PHOENIX THE WARRIOR) from Sony Video Software, Inc. and available on budget DVD (under the new title) from Echo Bridge Home Entertainment. Not Rated.

THE SNAKE QUEEN (1982) - Those crazy Indonesians are at it again. A beautiful queen wishes to have a baby because she is lonely, so she pleads to the gods for guidance. Rather than sending her a good looking man to produce a baby the old fashioned way, the gods tell her to create a storm in the South Sea, raise a dragon's egg from the bottom of the ocean and place the egg in the Cave of Secrets. The egg will then hatch into a beautiful Snake Queen (Imagine if all babies were made that way!), which the gods tell the lonely queen to name Queen Para. Well, the lonely queen does as she's instructed, but when the egg hatches in the Cave of Secrets (I was laughing so hard, I nearly coughed-up a kidney!), a fully grown woman (Suzzanna; QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC - 1979) emerges and she has the ability to control snakes (among other powers). Queen Para begins ruling over the humans, offering them wealth beyond their wildest dreams in exchange for human sacrifices. When Queen Para asks for the life of wealthy businessman Kokoro's (Ratno Timoer; director of THE DEVIL'S SWORD [1984] and THE BLIND WARRIOR [1985]) lovely daughter Sasti (Nenna Rosier), Kokoro pleads with Queen Para to let him offer someone else's life instead, since she's his last living blood relative. The Snake Queen agrees, as long as it's someone related to him, so Kokoro cooks up a plan, where he asks local boy Andika (Barry Prima; THE WARRIOR - 1981) to marry Sasti, for the sole purpose of offering Andika's life to the Snake Queen once the marriage ceremony is completed. Meanwhile, handsome, but penniless, Johan (George Rudy) is looking for the Snake Queen to offer his undying devotion in exchange for riches. An old hag named Miss Eno gives him directions to the Cave of Secrets, where he finds a group of seductive handmaidens (one who sucks her thumb like she is giving it head!). The young lasses jump into a pond and Queen Para rises from the water. She makes Johan eat a plate of human baby body parts to prove his devotion (he does grudgingly) and then tells him to go home to his wife (!) and prepare a secret chamber in his house, where she will arrive the following Wednesday for a night of sex. When Wednesday arrives, Johan discovers that his young daughter is dead (those body parts her ate may have been his daughter's!) and the Snake Queen arrives at the secret chamber (in her flying horse-drawn chariot!) to fuck Johan's brains out. When Johan's wife interrupts their lovemaking, Queen Para turns into a snake and kills them both. When the village turns out for Johan's burial, his body suddenly becomes too big to fit in his grave (!), which is the catalyst in a series of events that involves the greedy Kokoro, his new wife Dewi (also portrayed by Suzzanna), daughter Sasti and groom-to-be Andika. Things get out of hand when Andika falls madly in love with Dewi, which throws a monkey wrench in Kokoro's deal with the Snake Queen. It turns out that Dewi is actually the Snake Queen in disguise (not a very good one if you ask me) and she also finds herself falling in love with Andika, but the gods will not let her spend her life with a mere mortal. Needless to say, Kokoro tries to back-end his deal with the Snake Queen and enlists hag Miss Eno to do battle with her. It doesn't end well for Eno or Kokoro, as they both end up falling off cliffs to their deaths, only in entirely different ways. Don't worry though, folks, because the Snake Queen will return in future installments.  In case you didn't get the hint, this is the first in a series of Snake Queen films, all starring Suzzanna and directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra (PRIMITIVES - 1978; SRIGALA - 1981; SATAN'S SLAVE - 1982; and the previously-mentioned THE WARRIOR - 1981), which includes PERKAWINAN NYI BLORONG ("Snake Queen's Wedding" - 1983) and HUNGRY SNAKE WOMAN (1987). I'm sure that there are more films in the series, but the problem is that for every Indonesian film that makes it out of their country, there are at least fifty others that we will never see. THE SNAKE QUEEN contains all the weirdness and bizarre imagery we've come to expect from Indonesian fantasy films, including barely-dressed (but never nude) women dancing in some unexplained ritual; a scene where a man with a burning head splits his body in half at the waist (the bottom half runs around the top half for a few moments!), which results in the flaming head to become detached and roll on the ground; a strange vision of Hell, where Sasti sees her dead mother walk across a burning bridge made up of human bodies; a WIZARD OF OZ reference ("And you were there!"); a car crashing through a liquor store; an EXORCIST take-off, where a possessed, blue-faced Sasti makes her bed levitate and then does gymnastics on the walls and ceiling; lots of snakes; and, of course, hilarious English dubbing ("The babies we have will be alive!"). What can I say? I'm a sucker for these ridiculously insane flicks (this one was written by Darto Joned, who also scripted THE WARRIOR and REVENGE OF NINJA [1984], so you know you're in for a treat) and THE SNAKE QUEEN is a prime example of this demented genre. Produced by Gope T. Samtani for Indonesia's premiere purveyors of sleaze, Rapi Films. Also starring Dorman Borisman, Ade Irawan, I.M. Damsyik, Ruth Pellupessy and Doddy Sukma. As with most Indonesian films, this never had a legitimate U.S. home video release, so I had to rely on a copy sourced from a Greek-subtitled VHS tape. Those Greeks are lucky bastards. Not Rated.

SPIRIT OF '76 (1990) - Adam 11 (David Cassidy), Chanel 6 (Olivia d'Abo) and Heinz 57 (Geoff Hoyle) leave magnetic storm-ravaged Earth in the year 2176 in a time machine to travel back to 1776 in hope of finding the Constitution of the United States in order to restore heritage in their future society. A glitch in the time machine transports them instead to 1976 and the fun begins. Our trio is adopted by two teenage hippies (Jeffrey and Steve MacDonald of the music group Red Kross) and they are introduced to bell-bottom pants, Grand Funk Railroad, 8 track players, drug culture (with an assist from Tommy Chong), mood rings, an EST seminar (leader Rob Reiner calls everyone "assholes"), disco dancing, Pop Rocks and the fuzz. This low-budget inventive comedy looks back affectionately at the worst the 1970's had to offer. Parents gleam as they show their son the new AMC Pacer they just purchased. A Ford Pinto is tapped on the back bumper by a police car and explodes. . The line at the gas station stretches on for blocks. You get the picture. If all this sounds familiar, it's because deep within your subconscious you remember living it (if you're old enough). Being a teenager myself in the 70's, this film evokes many latent memories I'd rather forget, but since this is such a good-hearted film, I'll forgive them. Needless to say, the future will never be the same once the trio get back. Director Lucar Reiner (Rob Reiner's brother and Carl Reiner's son) works with an extremely low budget and does a good job of maintaining interest. Sprinkled throughout with the lamest music of the 70's ("Kung Fu Fighting", "Afternoon Delight", etc) and some good in-jokes (Cassidy discovers a Partridge Family lunchbox). A good, and different, addition to the time travel genre. Stay tuned after the end credits for a blooper reel. Cameo appearances by Devo, Carl Reiner, Julie Brown (as a politically correct stripper), Moon Zappa and Don Novello. A Columbia Pictures Home Video Release. Rated PG-13.

STAR KNIGHT (1986) - Odd Spanish fantasy/comedy. During the 14th Century, an alien, called IX (Miguel Bose), lands his spaceship and kidnaps a princess (Maria Lamor). Everyone thinks the spaceship is a dragon, except the alchemist (a badly dubbed Klaus Kinski), who is searching for the formula of "liquid gold", a potion that brings immortality. IX and the princess fall in love but the only problem is they can never touch because he needs to wear his high tech spacesuit at all times to stay alive. He cannot breathe in our atmosphere. IX gives Kinski a magical crystal ball which helps him in discovering the immortality formula (it comes in handy later). Kinski (in a rare good guy role) is opposed by the cardinal of the castle (Fernando Rey), who sees everything that Kinski does as the Devil's work. He destroys Kinski's lab (including the ball) just after Kinski saves a small amount of the potion. IX is opposed by a fumbling would-be knight (Harvey Keitel, whose presence seems out of place spouting ancient dialogue with his Brooklyn accent) who wants IX's spacesuit (he sees it as the ultimate armour) and seeks the princess' hand in marriage. It all leads to a final confrontation (a jousting match) where almost everyone lives happily ever after. There is much to dislike here (Kinski's dubbing, Keitel's performance, the stilted dialogue) but the overall good humored way the story is told finally won me over. Rey does a good comic turn with his role, blaming all the ills of the world on the Devil. Kinski turns in a rare restrained performance as the alchemist with a heart of gold. The cinematography is lush and the music score is above par. STAR KNIGHT is nothing excellent, but it does prove to be a fairly effective time waster. A Vidmark Entertainment Release. Rated PG-13.

TEMPLE OF THE THOUSAND LIGHTS (1965) - Here's an early fantasy/adventure film from gaillo and horror film maestro Umberto Lenzi that shows hints of his future involvement in the jungle/cannibal genre. When gambler and adventurer Alan Foster (Richard Harrison) loses $250,000 to Rajah Sindar (Daniele Vargas) in a poker game, he flees the palace and roams India (actually filmed in Malaysia) looking for a way to repay the debt (or skip out on paying it). In his travels, he befriends a fakir named Sitama (Wilbert Bradley), who can make a rope travel up to the sky and perform other magic tricks. After Sitama darkens-up Alan's skin (to make him blend in), they devise a plan to steal the "Mountain Of Light", a 200 carat diamond embedded in the head of a giant statue in the heavily guarded Temple Of The Thousand Lights. Together, with Alan's ingenuity and Sitama's magical powers, they proceed to steal the diamond. Along the way, they have to deal with a pack of hungry rats, a pool of ravenous alligators and a couple of other close calls. Once they get their hands on the diamond, Alan and Sitama must avoid the deadly grip of the devious Rajah Sindar and his palace guards. They must contend with deadly tigers, jungle booby traps, poisonous snakes and a double-cross before the film ends. In the finale, Alan discovers he was set-up from the beginning and must face one more death-defying trap before he can put everything right (he breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience in the humorous finale).  This is a fairly innocent mid-60's Italian fantasy adventure in the vein of KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1950). While very low on blood and gore, there are plenty of fist fights, gun battles and funny dialogue ("Your stench keeps me from concentrating"; "By Sheba, he's escaped us!"; "Do you want to denounce me? I won't hold it against you.") to keep you fairly entertained. Most of the "Indians" are portrayed by Italian actors with dark makeup on their faces (but not on the rest of their body!) and the Malaysian locales are very colorful.  Richard Harrison, who would much later make a career out of appearing in Indonesian and Hong Kong action flicks (RESCUE TEAM - 1981, etc.), looks ridiculously young and fit here and seems to be enjoying himself. This hard-to-find film (which used to play on U.S. TV under the title JUNGLE ADVENTURER) is a good bet for Lenzi enthusiasts and those interested in seeing where RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK may have gotten some inspiration. As with many foreign films of the 60's, Richard McNamara is listed as the director of the English Language Version. Let's just say that the dubbing is dubious at best. Also starring Luciana Gilli, Nerio Bernardi, Andrea Scotti and Nazzareno Zamperla. Not legally available on DVD or VHS in the U.S. (as of this writing), the version I saw was ripped from an English-language Venezuelan VHS tape with Spanish subtitles. Not Rated.

THE VAMPIRE RAIDERS (1988) - When Godfrey Ho wasn't churning out cut-and-paste martial arts actioners for producer Joseph Lai and his IFD Films & Arts Ltd. Production outfit, he was doing the same for producer Tomas Tang and his Filmark International production company, as he does here (Ho directed using the name "Bruce Lambert" and wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym "Antonin Gasner"). If you've seen any of Ho's pastiche films, you know what to expect: About ten minutes of newly-shot footage of Caucasian actors duking it out amongst themselves, intercut sporadically (about every twenty minutes or so) with some unreleased Hong Kong, Thai or Filipino genre film. The old footage here is some unknown Hong Kong horror comedy about hopping vampires that is intercut with new scenes of a female undercover agent posing as a model who transforms into a red-clad ninja that fights the dreaded Vampire Ninja Clan (I know, I know). The film proper is about a young female telephone operator named Elsie who overhears a phone conversation she shouldn't have and pretty soon she begins seeing vampires at the most inopportune times. She takes to reading the Bible for protection (She reads a passage out that goes, "And God says unto Moses, 'I've got some commandments for you. Go get a pen and write them down.'" What? A pen?), but it doesn't seem to do much good because her vampire visions come more frequently (I would have went directly for the crucifix and skipped the Bible completely, but that's just me). Meanwhile, our female ninja has various attempts made on her life, such as when someone tries to kill her by tossing a live pig (one of those big honking ones!) off a roof and onto her head (it ends up crushing an innocent bystander instead) or when she is sunbathing on a beach in her skimpy bikini (gratuitous crotch shots!) and a vampire pops out from under the sand and grabs her breasts (it turns into one of the silliest martial arts fights in Ho's canon). Elsie and her two female operator co-workers try to figure out how to stop the vampire menace, so they listen-in to telephone calls made by Mr. Ho, who Elsie believes controls the vampires, and with the help of their dimwitted male friend Fattie, try to save the life of Mr. Wong, who Elsie believes is next on Mr. Ho's hit list. They warn Mr. Wong, but he doesn't take them seriously and brushes them off by saying, "Cut it! Piss on it! Shit on it!" (Yeah, he's a class act). When Elsie and her friends actually end up saving Mr. Wong's ass anyway, he rewards them by sending them on a weeklong vacation on his yacht and, wouldn't you know it, they find themselves trapped in the middle of the ocean on a yacht overrun with zombies. Will the urine from a virgin save their lives (Where do they come up with this stuff?) or will they all die in a watery grave? And what about our red female ninja? Will she defeat the Vampire Ninja Clan? Do I really need to tell you?  Say what you want about Godfrey Ho. His films lack cohesion and contain some hilariously bad English dubbing (I sometimes think the Australian dubbing crew purposely inserts the bad dialogue in there, especially the Moses and the pen line, just to see if anyone on the production end is paying attention. Apparently, they're not.), but they are never boring. Watching his films are akin to suffering from a fever dream, where nothing makes any sense at all, but, damn, if you just go with it, you are guaranteed on having a good time. THE VAMPIRE RAIDERS (VHS box title: VAMPIRE RAIDERS NINJA QUEEN) is no different, as it contains many "What The Fuck?!?" moments, including the pig-tossing, the beach battle scene (Ho is content on having our female ninja parade around in the skimpiest bikini imaginable, oblivious to the fact that she has a huge ugly birthmark on the back of her upper left thigh. She is a looker, though.), a pleasure boat being piloted by a crew of zombies, and other insanity. Ho's rejiggering of the plot makes absolutely no sense other than to justify his insertion of the newly-shot footage (which is badly integrated into the older footage), but that's one of the reasons why Ho's films play so well if you're in the right frame of mind (If you're not, Ho's films can seem mighty insufferable). The final battle between the female red ninja and the Vampire Ninja Clan (which includes two comical hopping vampires) is one of Ho's more accomplished insert footage sequences. It has actual martial arts choreography, wire work, a flying dismembered head and other weirdness. It looks as if Ho put some thought and time into filming it and was not his usual rush job. As usual, the music soundtrack is full of lifted (and illegally obtained) music cues from other sources, including TV's THE ADDAMS FAMILY! Starring Martin Dukes, Walter Jackson, Chris Peterson, Agnes Chan, Ruby Cohn, Deborah Tao, Robert Willet and Edwin Morris. Originally released on VHS by Trans World Entertainment and not available on DVD. Not Rated.

THE WARRIOR (1981) - I don't pretend to know squat about Indonesian history, but I sincerely doubt that this highly entertaining fantasy flick could be viewed as a docudrama. During the latter part of the 19th Century, the tyrannical Dutch rulers capture Indonesian rebel (and hero) Jaka Sembung (Barry Prima) and put him in a labor camp. He escapes after a revolt (where the prison guards slaughter half of the inmates) and the Dutch government puts a bounty on his head. The first bounty hunter to show up is Kobar, a bald-headed bear of a man whose skin is impervious to bullets and knives (he can also breathe fire!). After proving his worth to Dutch officer Mr. Van Shram (by twisting the neck of an ox, killing it!), Kobar tracks down Jaka and they fight. Jaka quickly kills Kobar by shoving a bamboo pole through his mouth until it protrudes out the back of his head (fire shoots out of the pole!). Mr. Van Shram is pissed and the next person to offer to kill Jaka is "an expert in voodoo" (a ridiculously-thin man with teeth so big, he can't close his mouth), who levitates a soldier to prove his power. He resurrects Ki Item (W.D. Mochtar) from the dead after rejoining Ki Item's body with his missing head (a sequence not to be missed). As the Dutch soldiers begin killing innocent villagers in their search for Jaka (including putting a gun to a little boy's head), Jaka comes to their rescue and battles powerful sorcerer Ki Item. Jaka loses the battle and is captured by the soldiers, who parade his bloody, beaten body through the town. Jaka is crucified in a dungeon (spikes are driven through his hands) in front of the other prisoners. Jaka's girlfriend, Serti (Eva Arnaz), leads a revolt as Van Shram's daughter Maria (Dana Christina) tries to free Jaka in the dungeon, but her father catches her. He slaps her around and pokes out both of Jaka's eyes with a spike (quite graphically). Serti is also captured and put in the dungeon, where the eyeless Jaka prays to Allah and then pulls the spikes out of his hands with his teeth. The now-seemingly superhuman Jaka knocks down the dungeon walls and bars with his bare hands (Ah, the power of prayer!), but Ki Item turns him into a pig (!) and Serti is shot in the back. To give away any more would be depriving you of a truly twisted tale of faith and devotion. Let's just say it involves eye transplants, flying heads and a fierce battle between two sorcerers. "Don't let him touch the ground!"  This film, directed by Indonesian stalwart Sisworo Gautama Putra (PRIMITIVES - 1978), is non-stop madness from beginning to end and was so popular in it's native country, it spawned several sequels, all starring Barry Prima as Jaka Sembung. Highly critical of the Dutch government (which is funny, because I watched this on a dub taken from a Dutch-subtitled VHS tape) and gory as hell, THE WARRIOR is must-viewing for all weird film lovers. Mixing true-life historical events with way-out fantasy elements, this film never slows down and is never boring, even if it does hit you over the head repeatedly with the "Allah is great!" religious message. While the Dutch and Dutch sympathizers are portrayed as evil incarnate (One Dutch sympathizer describes Jaka by saying, "He's lower than scum!") and the villagers as the poor, downtrodden victims, there's enough crazy dialogue ("What's it like being pig for a day?") and bloody carnage (eye gougings, impalements, floating heads, bloody stumps, leaves used as weapons and Jaka's unbelievable final battle with Ki Item) to get your mind off the ridiculousness of it all. There's really no martial arts involved until the finale, where the villagers take matters into their own hands and attack the Dutch stronghold (lots of stabbings and spurting blood) and Jaka goes one-on-one with Van Shram. As with most Indonesian flicks, there's also out-of-place comedy relief (Here, it's a retarded villager who, at one point says, "Hey, look at me! I'm a monkey!", but even he dies in the finale). Put this on your must-own list. American history was never this entertaining. Gope T. Samtani, who directed the war action film HELL RAIDERS (1985, starring many of the same actors as here), produced this. Also starring Dicky Zulkarnaen, Rukman Herman, Dorman Borisman, I.M. Damsyik Parya, Syamsuddin Sjafei, S. Suryabrata and "A Cast Of Thousands". The next film in the series was THE WARRIOR 2 (1983), also known as THE WARRIOR AGAINST THE BLIND SWORDSMAN. Available from many grey market sellers, including Nightcrew Video. Not Rated.

THE WARRIOR 2 (1983) - This sequel to the amazing THE WARRIOR (1981) is not as good as the original (what is?), but is still a rip-roaring good time. The film opens (ca. the late 19th Century) with a Dutch garrison bombarding an Indonesian village with cannon fire. As the soldiers move in to slaughter the villagers, hometown rebel (and hero) Jaka Sembung (Barry Prima) and his men show up and kill all the soldiers except for one, who they riddle with arrows and send back to Dutch headquarters as a warning. Listening to all this on a hilltop ia blind swordsman Si Buta (Advent Bangun), who comments (in voiceover) that death is a sound he's heard often. When the seriously-injured soldier makes his way to headquarters, it pisses-off his Dutch superiors, who hold a grand tournament to find the best fighter to defeat Jaka. At the tournament, where a series of strongmen fight each other (one has a tree stump broken over his head; another bites the ear off his opponent), Si Buta shows up and defeats the winner to become Jaka's hunter. Si Buta agrees to lead a group of Dutch soldiers in their quest to kill Jaka in return for a chest of gold. Si Buta is helped by witch Maki (who likes to hang out in trees), who tells him every so often that "Jaka is near". When Si Buta and Jaka meet a short time later, they get into a fight and Si Buta cut's off Jaka's head and takes it as proof of his death. Si Buta brings Jaka's head back to Dutch headquarters, where evil Captain Rakoni orders the head to be displayed on a pole in the town square. The Captain also orders his men to follow and kill Si Buta and bring back the gold. Si Buta manages to kill all the soldiers following him, but is mortally wounded by a gunshot (he removes the bullet with his combination cane/sword). Maki heals him, but when she makes love to him and offers to have his baby (as well as immortality), he rebuffs her, which really pisses her off. Maki begins shooting fireballs out of her palms and jumps up and down on Si Buta's chest, but he is saved by Jaka. It turns out that Si Buta never killed Jaka at all, as he was only fighting an "illusion" and the head hanging in the town square turns out to be that of a jackass! To show his appreciation to Jaka for saving his life, Si Buka gives all his gold to the village people. All is not well, though, as Maki has now aligned herself with the Dutch. She offers to help Captain Rakoni kill Jaka and Si Buta using her powers of sorcery (including invisibility) in exchange for the safety of her village of all-female warriors. When Maki kidnaps a child with magical powers from Jaka's village, Jaka and Si Buta join forces to save the child. Just when everything seems hunky-dory, the damn Dutch show up with their cannons again. Oh boy!  While basically nothing more than a remake of THE WARRIOR (with more fantasy elements and a lot less religious subtext than the original), THE WARRIOR 2, also known as THE WARRIOR AGAINST THE BLIND SWORDSMAN, contains a lot of gory scenes (heads flying through the air, too many impalements to count and many other bloody moments) and even some sex and nudity this time around. As with most Indonesian films, the Dutch are portrayed as back-stabbing evil bastards who can't be trusted to keep their word (I never did trust the Dutch, with their vowel-heavy language and words that contain way too many "J"'s and "V"'s!) and the Indonesian people, no matter how evil they are, can find redemption (as both Si Buta and Maki do here). There are many fantasy scenes to be found here and the highlight is Maki's healing at the hands of "The Dark Master" in his underground lair, who may very well be the Devil himself (he has a long furry tail that he uses to strangle people!). The film has precious little to do with the title character (Barry Prima has very little screen time until the finale) and more to do with Si Buta (who would soon get a film series of his own) and Maki. The script (by Darto Joned, who also wrote the script for the first film as well as dozens of others) seems to head in a different direction every 30 minutes, The first part deals with Si Buta's pursuit of Jaka, the middle about Maki's and Si Buta's relationship and the final 30 minutes brings all three characters together with the child kidnapping. Director Dasri Jacob (listed here as "Dasri Yacob") has directed many Indonesian films, but I believe this is his only one that was dubbed into English. This film is all nonsense, mind you, but it is entertaining nonsense. The next film in the series was THE WARRIOR AND NINJA (1985). Also starring W.D. Mochtar, Rukman Herman, Sri Gudhy Sintara, Yos Santos, Hera Helmy and the incredibly-monikered Moosdyk. The print I viewed was a dub taken from a Dutch-subtitled VHS tape on the VUH Video Holland label. Not Rated. Watch out for the exploding bodies!

THE WARRIOR AND NINJA (1985) - The further adventures of Indonesian folk hero Jaka Sembung (Barry Prima) and his fight against the Dutch Imperialists and fellow countrymen-turned-traitors that want to enslave the nation. An erupting volcano rains down boulders and lava on Jaka's village, forcing them to relocate. The eruption also awakens Balung Wesi, The Man Of Iron (Syamsuri Kaempuan), a nemesis of Jaka's Master, who has been sleeping in a cave (a stalactite strikes him on the head, waking him up!), after dueling with Jaka's Master many years before, waiting for the day to get his revenge. Balung begins a path of destruction (his touch causes human flesh to burn), as he looks for his old nemesis. A female Robin Hood-like thief called the Black Squirrel (Zurmainy Terry) makes the Dutch Imperialists lives miserable by stealing their gold and passing it on to the poor peasants to buy food and finance the revolution. Jaka and the Black Squirrel (her real name is Roweta) team up to fight the Dutch and Balung, The Man Of Iron (named that because his skin is like iron, impenetrable to bullets and swords), who roams from village to village, killing everyone in his path in his search for Jaka's Master. Things take a turn for the worse for Jaka and his people when Balung joins forces with Dutch loyalist Ki Demang (El Manik; HELL RAIDERS - 1985) and paraplegic sorcerer Maruta, who gives Roweta the "evil eye", almost killing her. Jaka carries her to a witch's house located in a tree for a cure and wonders if he can ever convince his people to rise against their oppressors. Jaka then battles Balung and nearly loses his life, but he remembers his Master's teachings and defeats Balung by dunking him in water (iron and water don't mix very well) and delivering a few deadly blows that makes Balung's body break into several bloody pieces (Jaka has Balung's severed head delivered to Ki Demang with a note that reads: "He would have defeated me, but he was a little rusty!"). This, of course, infuriates Ki Demang to no end, so he begins killing innocent villagers until Jaka turns himself in. Jaka relents and is tortured with a swinging pendulum, but Rowena arrives in the nick of time to save him from being separated at the waist. It all ends with a martial arts extravaganza, as Jaka and Rowena battle the bad guys and gals (Maruta's death by mirror and his female assistant's death by facial peeling are highlights) until only Jaka and Rowena are left standing, bloodied but unbowed.  This is a lot less wild than THE WARRIOR (1981) and THE WARRIOR 2 (1983), both starring Barry Prima, but it's not without it's demented charms. Director H. Tjut Djalil (MYSTICS IN BALI - 1981; LADY TERMINATOR - 1988; DANGEROUS SEDUCTRESS - 1992) seems more interested in showing us several lengthy martial arts fights (where slow-motion and reverse photography are judiciously employed), but there are still enough weird visuals on hand to keep you entertained, such as when Balung bites a sword in half and spits the blade into an opponent's neck; Maruta's disfigurement of Rowena's face ("The power is in his eyes! Don't look into his eyes!"); Rowena's rescue of Jaka in the trap-filled torture chamber; Balung's death by a few well-placed punches and kicks by Jaka; and the wild and wooly fight-filled finale, where several over-the-top deaths are on view. Surprisingly, Imam Tantowi's (SATAN'S SLAVE - 1982) screenplay is relatively light on the religious subtext, unlike the first film (which was fueled by faith) and the first sequel (which was also light on the Allah stuff, but not as light as this film). While definitely the weakest of the first three Warrior films (apparently more were made, but have yet to make it beyond Indonesia's borders), THE WARRIOR AND NINJA is still better than 99% of the crap that passes for fantasy on our shores. Also starring Tizar Purbaya, Rita Zahara, H. Syamsuddin Syafei, H. Kosim Betawi, Donny Sabella, Fatima Maria, Hassan Dollar and Moosdijk (a name I would never want to be born with!). Produced by Gope T. Samtani (who really deserves a career retrospective) for Rapi Films. As usual, this film never had a legitimate U.S. home video release. I'm not sure where this widescreen, hilariously English-dubbed print originated from, but it's free from Dutch or Greek subtitles, which is very unusual. Not Rated.

THE WICKSBORO INCIDENT (2001) - There are many imitations of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and, while most of them suck, this one is a horse of a different color: a shot-on-video science fiction pseudo-documentary that actually works. The back story concerns a top secret experiment gone horribly wrong in Wicksboro, Texas in 1953 causing the entire population of the town to disappear (actually disintegrate). Lloyd (Bobby Harwell, also Executive Producer), a scientist working on the project, survives the accident thanks to his laboratory being an underground bomb shelter. He hightails it out of Wicksboro and gets himself lost in Los Angeles. 45 years later, he hires two documentary filmmakers (Dan Brinkle and Kyle Nudd) to help him uncover the mystery and to help him avenge the death of his sister and every person remotely connected to anyone who lived in Wicksboro. Lloyd is convinced that aliens are populating the Earth and has created a device that can detect aliens from humans. A green light means the person is human. A red light means the person is an alien. Lloyd brings the device out to the streets where we learn (in a humorous fashion) that half of the people walking the streets are alien. The filmmakers are somewhat dubious of Lloyd and his device since they know that he is an alcoholic and prone to exaggeration. They also cannot find Wicksboro on any map of Texas, so they must trust Lloyd to help them find some evidence that Wicksboro actually existed. This leads the trio on a road trip to Texas to find the town. Everything looks hopeless as it seems Wicksboro has been wiped off the face of the Earth. They are about to head back to Los Angeles when Lloyd begs for one last chance to look for his underground bomb shelter using a metal coat hanger as a divining rod! To everyone's surprise, it works, as they find the bomb shelter and all the evidence that proves Lloyd's entire story is true. Trouble begins when they realize that they are being followed by a helicopter, an unmarked car and some of the mysterious faceless Men In Black (who are alien according to Lloyd's device). It's a race back to Los Angeles to turn in the video evidence to the TV News before they are killed by the mysterious invaders (whom we are never given a clear vision of). It is not a happy ending. Director/Producer/Screenwriter Richard Lowry (HAWK JONES - 1986; JESSICA: A GHOST STORY - 1992; DESTINATION MARS - 2002) proves that you don't need a lot of money to make a damned-good film as long as you have a good story and decent actors. There are at least a half dozen really good scares and goosebump-inducing scenes that actually make you jump and Lloyd's fate is a real shock to the system. There are also plenty of humorous moments, such as when Lloyd walks out of a liquor store with an armfull of cheap wine that he's proud to announce that he has paid a buck a bottle for and his off-the-wall riff on why THE X-FILES was created to provide disinformation to the viewing public! Many first-time viewers may view this film as a real documentary (as long as they don't read the DVD packaging). That's a real compliment to Richard Lowry's craft. I can't wait to see his next films: THE LOOKING GLASS (A real interesting-looking film produced by and starring Michael Pataki) and SINISTER (both 2003). For more on Richard Lowry, click HERE. A Vanguard Cinema DVD Release. Not Rated.

ZOMBIE VS. NINJA (1988) - Another ridiculous cut-and-paste martial arts flick from director/screenwriter Godfrey Ho (who uses the pseudonyms "Charles Lee" and "Benny Ho" respectively here) and producers Joseph Lai and Betty Chan for Lai's IFD Films And Arts Ltd. production company. You know what to expect: About ten minutes of newly-shot footage featuring Caucasian actors dressed in brightly colored ninja outfits (with their fashionable headbands with the word "NINJA" emblazoned on the front) beating the crap out of each other, inserted intermittently into some unreleased Hong Kong actioner, forming an incomprehensible mess of a hybrid film. The old footage here is a period martial arts/fantasy about a young lad named Ethan Chang searching for the killer of his father, who knew the location to a fortune in gold. Ethan takes a job as an assistant to an undertaker (an actor who sports a huge set of crooked buck teeth), who is also a zombie master (the zombies are a lot like hopping vampires, but without the fangs). Ethan travels the countryside with a coffin strapped to his back (!), getting into a series of comical kung-fu fights where he uses the coffin as part of his arsenal. In the newly-shot footage, good ninja Duncan (Pierre Kirby; AMERICAN FORCE 2: THE UNTOUCHABLE GLORY - 1988) battles evil ninja Mason (Edowan Bersmea) and his never-ending supply of bad ninjas over an old fighting style called the "Dragon's Fire", which will only get stronger once the missing gold is found (Don't strain your brain trying to figure this out. Just go with it.). Meanwhile, the the snaggly-toothed undertaker also turns out to be a kung-fu Master, so in true 80's montage fashion, he slowly teaches Ethan the finer points of the martial arts by first increasing Ethan's stamina by making him walk around with a coffin filled with rocks strapped to his back. Ethan doesn't take anything seriously, as he uses the coffin as a sled to slide down a snow-filled mountain and then shaves off his Master's beard and moustache while he sleeps! Eventually, even with all his buffoonery, Ethan becomes an expert martial artist, especially when his Master makes him fight one of his kung-fu zombies to hone his skills. In the finale, Ethan must defeat a multitude of bad guys before doing battle with Titus, the person responsible for the death of his father. Duncan and Mason also face-off in a fight to the death, using their swords, smoke grenades and the uncanny ability to disappear and reappear at will until only one is left standing.  It's really hard to explain the allure of these Ho/Lai pastiche flicks, but they have an absurd charm to them that makes for an entertaining night's viewing if you are in the right frame of mind. My best explanation is either you "get it" or you don't and, believe me, I totally understand if you don't get it. While all these films follow the same exact formula, the enjoyment level varies from film to film, depending on the craziness factor of the newly shot scenes, the old footage used and the hilarious English dubbing. Some of Ho's films work solely because of the old footage and the bad dubbing (such as his THUNDER OF GIGANTIC SERPENT -1988; also starring Kirby and Bersmea), some entertain solely on the new footage (such as MAJESTIC THUNDERBOLT [1984] and NINJA TERMINATOR [1986]) and some work for all three reasons (SCORPION THUNDERBOLT - 1986). ZOMBIE VS. NINJA falls into the first category, as the newly shot footage is basically unexceptional, but the old footage and dubbing are priceless. The film proper is a comical fantasy that contains a lot of martial arts and borrows themes from THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967), including the coffin sled ride. It also contains some weird dream sequences where Ethan has non-comical nightmares of him killing his Master or finding him decapitated. The dubbing contains such double-take lines as: "I've never seen anybody shit like that before. Then again, I've never watched anybody shit!" and "You said he killed Bobby...and you don't look so good yourself!" So, just sit back, toke on a big fattie, drink a sixpack and enjoy the majesty that is Godfrey Ho. Also known as ZOMBIE RIVAL: THE SUPER NINJA MASTER and ZODIAC POWER: THE SUPER MASTER. Also starring Dewey Bosworth, Thomas Hartham, Patrick Frbezar, Renato Sala, Mason Chang, David Kim, James Kim, Yin Kim (I sense a pattern here), Mark Wang and Paul Lee. Originally released on VHS by Imperial Entertainment Corporation. Not available on DVD. Not Rated, but remember: "The Dragon's Fire burns hot!"

ZONE TROOPERS (1985) - Interesting hybrid from executive producer Charles Band's Empire Pictures (which would make RE-ANIMATOR the same year) that mixes World War II action with sci-fi elements, with enjoyable results. It's 1944 and a squad of American soldiers stationed in the middle of nowhere in the Italian forest are ambushed by a platoon of Nazis. After the fighting is through, all that remains on the American side are Sgt. Stone (Tim Thomerson), Mittens (Art La Fleur), PFC Joey Verona (Timothy Van Patten) and Charlie Dolan (Biff Manard), a civilian newspaper reporter. As they are being chased further behind enemy lines by the Krauts, it becomes obvious that they are not alone in the woods. With their compass acting screwy and unexpectedly being saved by a mysterious beam of light that obliterates a tree that nearly falls on them, the Americans discover a secret German SS camp in the middle of the forest. Just what are the SS doing there? Apparently, the SS is there investigating the crash of an alien spaceship. Sgt Stone and Joey find the crashed ship and go inside, while Mittens and Charlie are captured by the Germans. While in the ship, Stone and Joey find the body of a dead alien and escape from the ship just before the Germans surround it. Stone and Joey destroy the ship (by throwing a grenade in it's tailpipe!) and move on to save Mittens and Charlie, who are being tortured by the Krauts. The SS have also captured the surviving alien (makeup effects by John Carl Buechler), who eventually joins forces with the Americans when Hitler arrives to view his new prize (Mittens even gets a cheap shot in, giving Der Fuhrer a bloody nose!). The four Americans steal the truck containing the caged alien (who saves their hides by putting a force field around the truck) and the five of them hide out in a mausoleum for the night where Joey (who's a big sci-fi freak) and the alien bond (it likes to eat cigarettes!). The alien gives Joey a device where whatever he thinks becomes real, so he thinks of a beautiful woman. She materializes, but Mittens breaks the device and she disappears. The next morning, a rescue ship appears and whisks the alien (who we find out is female) away, but not before Joey is killed by a German tank shell. As the Germans close in on Stone, Mittens and Charlie, the aliens save the day and kill the remaining Germans with their ray guns. Since their story would never be believed by the public, Charlie ends up writing it for Joey's favorite sci-fi pulp magazine. A fitting tribute.  This good-natured tale is basically a low-budget take-off on E.T.: THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982), but it's off-beat charms and unusual setting more than make up for it's deficits (including some bad optical effects in the finale). Director Danny Bilson (THE WRONG GUYS - 1988, using all the stars in this film), who also co-wrote the script with producer Paul De Meo, tosses in enough verbal and visual charm, especially in the dialogue between the four Americans, the make the entire film a treat for fans of the unusual. The only violence in this film is the constant gunplay (lots of squibs with little blood) and Mittens' beating at the hands of a German interrogator. The rest of the film is pure fantasy, especially the subplot about Sgt. Stone, who earned the nickname "The Iron Sarge" for his uncanny ability to survive when most would die. After witnessing him being shot point-blank and surviving a direct grenade hit and coming out of both of them without a scratch, you'll be wondering if he, too, is also an alien. The entire cast of excellent character actors do a nice job here, even Timothy Van Patten, who would eventually put acting on the back burner and become an Emmy Award-winning director of episodic television, as can be seen in his great work on THE SOPRANOS. This is a one-of-a-kind film that should please fantasy fans. Also starring Peter Bloom, Max Turilli and William Paulson as the alien. A Lightning Video Release. Rated PG.