R.I.P. Bud Spencer

                                 10/31/29 - 06/27/16

"The World's Greatest Sinner" (1962) d/ Timothy Carey

Coming off the most prolific October for reviews since the outset of Wopsploitation (seventeen entries! Chi minchia!) when my chin had no grays on it, the question soon arose, what could I do to top that? Well, I could always write about a movie that some have called the greatest ever made, slagged off on national television by legendary musical oddball, Frank Zappa, who coincidentally provides the film with it's soundtrack, after having musically played a bicycle (!) on the Steve Allen Show in 1963. The lost film, championed over the years by such cinematic luminaries as John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese, was the five year labor of love of one Timothy Agoglia Carey (forty year, really, if you consider that, unable to afford a proper director, he edited and re-edited the film himself, over and over up until his death in 1994), an unforgettably crazy and creepy supporting actor par excellence whose amazingly original screen presence and style dictated that all audience focus was upon him, whether he was picking a fight with Brando in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), kidnapping Linda Evans and taking her back to his boobie house in Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), or having an axe fight with Peter Graves in Bayou (1957).


He must be God, he's got it embroidered on his blazer sleeve.
A forty-something insurance salesman named Clarence Hilliard (Tim Carey) who's become jaded by his mundane existence,  is fired from his job after having given all of his co-workers a sudden day off. Tired of being a nobody and seeking recognition and power, he then has a revelation that God and man are one and the same, changing his name to "God". With the help of his trusty gardener(!),  "God" Hilliard creates his own selfish religion, practiced by super human beings who once underestimated their own greatness, before realizing that they are immortal thanks to Hilliard's sermons, which come in the form of "God" himself, first shouting into a bullhorn on crowded street corners, spurring them to go out and destroy property,  then later, decked out in an Elvis-ish gold lame' suit and molto fake goatee, fronting a tone deaf, rhythmless rock and roll outfit, while itching for fleas, rubber legging, wriggling on the ground like a spastic, and repeatedly screaming, "Please! Please! PLEASE! Take....my hand!", to the frenzied audience, while his printed gospel is handed out by assistants to the crowd.


The "I've got fleas / Rubberleg dance" is featured here.
With his crazy rock shows, Hilliard attracts the attention of an unscrupulous political manager, who convinces him to drop the band, and instead run for the presidency. On the campaign trail, "God" seduces teenaged girls and old biddies, the same, even exclaiming, "You remind me of my mother...", before swapping spit with an octogenarian member of his constituency, even advising non-believers to commit suicide. His new spirited outreach program to groupies sours his wife towards his ambition, sending their daughter in, with bible in hand, to try to reason with her father, who's only angered at their failure to recognize his obvious divinity. He sends them both packing. Once self-doubt arises inside "God", his political campaign starts to lose steam, with claims that he is not who he claims to be starting to be heard amidst the flock. He utilizes a church visit to reaffirm his own greatness, noticing the parishioners attention to the communion ritual, leading him to stealing one of the wafers and perforating it repeatedly with a pin. When no blood runs from the host, he becomes disillusioned with his own divinity and religion, in general. In the end, he fails as a God, but manages to secure himself a personal pitchfork as the world's greatest sinner, property of the horned fella downstairs.


"Does the dark lord and master require another frozen rat?"
From the second I first saw him, I was instantly transformed into the biggest Tim Carey fan in the universe, hunting down even his most brief appearances in movies, and mammoth body of television work, encompassing memorable turns in everything from Rawhide and Gunsmoke to Baretta and Starsky and Hutch. That's the thing about him, whenever he's in the frame, no matter what he may be saying, in his remarkable New York teeth-gritted slur, he owns it. Sinner is no different, though the production values are penurious to say the least, and the supporting cast ranges from abecedarian to neophyte at best, you will be absorbed into every frenetic frame by Carey's astonishing performance. That he's not yet the cult star of all cult stars only proves how unevolved the current cinematic climate is, and how far we have to go. Here's hoping that Carey's son, Romeo, who owns the rights to the original director's cut of the film, releases it someday so that the world can fully appreciate his father's vision. On the scale, four Wops, and required viewing for midnight movie maniacs everywhere.


"Please, please, PLEASE...TAKE...MY...HAND!"

R.I.P. Betsy Palmer

 
                                 11/01/26 - 05/29/15

R.I.P. Richard Kiel

 
                             09/13/39 - 09/10/14

R.I.P. Eli Wallach

                     12/07/15 - 06/25/14

R.I.P. Rik Mayall

                              03/07/58 - 06/09/14

R.I.P. Jim Kelly

                                        05/05/46 - 06/29/13

"The White Buffalo"(1977)d/J. Lee Thompson

Tonight's entry is respectfully dedicated to Rikard,a bro with similar appreciation for the tits items in life.I'm finally getting around to this one well over a year later?Better late than never, haha.When I got dragged to see this one by my old man, a Bronson freak of great reknown the world over, I was mainly interested in seeing the titular pale bison trampling cowboys and indians alike under vengeful hooves.I didn't groove on Charlie's distinctive monotone action vibe 'til I hit double digits.For a skinny little Italian kid with a penchant for monstruous creature features like I was,producer Dino De Laurentiis' mid to late seventies stretch of bombastic animals gone awry movies was the emotional equivalent of missing Thursday and Friday from school with a fever,getting couch-based TLC from the em and pee,new toys,Nugent lps,and horror movie marathons(even though I just may have been technically healthy enough Thursday night for school on Friday,I may or may not have embellished the illness' seriousness for a few hours the next morning just to add on to the upcoming weekend.Parlaying sickness into accrued kid wealth and prolonged "me" time at age eight.And to think some skeptics have doubted my genius...).Just give me some sort of pissed off animal of significant size on a human-hating hullabaloo,and I'd eat it up with a fork,no questions asked.Tonight's entry was no different,at the time.

If there's one thing Bill Hickok(Charles Bronson) hates more than the top bunk, it's hard-charging mechanical buffalo puppets that haunt his dreams.

We meet Wild Bill Hickok(Charles Bronson) roused from the middle of his latest nightmare with guns a-blazin' towards a white bison of mythical proportions that frequently tramples through the legendary gunslinger's subconscious with the discretion of a diesel train.He's powerful opposed to such things, see, and ruinin' a feller's dreams like 'et is fixin' to get blasted, round these parts.Hickokski tracks the beast, pairing up with a cantankerous old geezer(Jack Warden) while pit stopped in a one cow town, while elsewhere, Crazy Horse(Will Sampson), the Indian, not the forty-ouncer, is having very real quandary of his own with the albino instigator, having selfishly trampled the Chief's entire village and murdered his own child just for the eff of it.Forced to repair his wounded pride and restore his tribal stature, Horse must hunt the animal himself, or forever be known as 'The Worm' to his peers, the first nation equivalent of being called a "Shirley", I'd wager.

When he's not trampling Hickok's dreams and destroying native villages under vengeful hooves, the white buffalo also enjoys long, impressionistic gallops in the snow and the music of  Lobo.

 When the men inevitably meet, they communicate through crazy sign language, despite speaking perfect English to each other at the same time, mind you, and after saving each other's lives in ambushes, respectively, they declare themselves 'blood brothers', even though both men are blindly determined to be the one to finally bag the achromatic fucker, singlehandedly.Hickok even turns down some choice western-style trim from the obligatory hooker with a heart o'gold(Kim Novak, in one of her final roles) while sharing a bed with her(!).Talk about dedication to the cause, baby.Stuart Whitman, Slim Pickens, and John Carradine all make their contrived genre cameos, while Clint Walker does a good job in a rare villainous turn.Though the beast is seemingly immortal, and powerful enough to barrel through mountainous snow and rock walls, the unlikely duo eventually fell it, with Crazy Horse riding atop and skinning it with a knife like a feathered Ahab of the West; the shabby plastic snow and less-than-believable sets pretty much serving as a final resting place, if not for the Hollywood western(Heaven's Gate would finish the job a few years later), then definitely for the horror/western/adventure.

Nevermind your healthy skepticism of my white skin.Lead me to your peyote, More-Ornate-Than-Wolves(Will Sampson).

Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky in the coal region of the Allegheny's in Pennsylvania to Polish and Lithuanian parents, changing his name to 'Bronson' during the McCarthy hearings because he thought his real name sounded 'too Russian'(!).Buffalo was his last picture for UA, a box-office dud that really signalled the end of his real creative ambitions in film, though he'd again work with director J. Lee Thompson on typical Bronson-fare titles like 10 To Midnight(1983) and The Evil That Men Do(1984), staying busy right up to his last feature, Death Wish V:The Face of Death(1994), before succumbing at the age of 81 in 2003.A real favorite of mine since my teens, Bronson's contribution to film, and the action genre in particular, is immeasurable, and really, he's great here as Hickok, a performance that's been brought to light since the film's recent re-evaluation by movie fans everywhere.On the scale, Buffalo earns two Wops, a very watchable exercise in exploitation.Check it out.

With the Great White Buffalo, they gonna make a final stand in the new, magic land.
 

R.I.P Jonathan Frid

December 2, 1924 - April 13, 2012

R.I.P. Lina Romay

23 June 1954 - 15 February, 2012

R.I.P. David Hess

The gang won't be the same without you, Boss.

September 19, 1942-October 7, 2011

"Raw Meat"(1972)d/Gary Sherman

You'll have to wait for my "Mind the doors!" pun 'til later on in the post(with Doors fans acknowledging and respecting my personal opinion,thanks), since most of you already know it's coming before we start.For years this title remained a rarely seen, admittedly dated little number indeed, until that marvelous new vista in home entertainment(digital versatile disc,natch) made it readily available for the horror-starved masses looking to finally screen c.h.u.d.'s British predecessor for themselves, myself included.What followed is a twisted little dittie with surprising levels of early gore as the U.S. title promises(released as "Death Line" in d.o. Blighty), that occasionally plods along just like its minimalist synth-heavy score as provided by Wil Malone, and examined in-depth by the L.I. Ripper on one of his glorious blogsites.Despite its pacing troubles, the movie offers interesting character studies by long-time cult fave Donald Pleasance as a skeptical-yet-street smart Cockney cozzer with no hatred for the drink, and genre maestro Christopher Lee in an enjoyably smarmy cameo, all directed by American Gary Sherman, whose other work we'll also come back to later in the entry, if that's alright with you lot.Tube filming(for you Underground historians and factual hairsplitters) took place at Aldwych station, which was in a state of disuse at the time, and Holborn, which was still up n' running, despite a disused Museum tube in the movie, mentioned by name.All-in-all, not a bad way to burn an hour and a half for horror fans hoping to catch something relatively unique in both story and tone.The story goes like this...

Cannibalistic British Underground Chappies: One man's cadavers are another man's(Hugh Armstrong) vittles.
After a political suit's attempts at procuring a bit of weathered-looking krumpet in a mostly deserted area of the tube go sour when they haggle over prices(she knees him where lemonade is made), he is suddenly attacked by an unknown assailant, who is interrupted by an incoming train that lets off Alex and Patricia(David Ladd, Sharon Gurney), an American collegiate and his British squeeze, who come to the man's aid, but when they return with a nearby bobby, the bloke's pulled a bloody Houdini, hasn't he?Enter Detective Sargeant Rogers(Norman Rossington) and Inspector Calhoun(Donald Pleasance), the salt-of-the-earth duo responsible for the investigatory procedures that follow the ensuing report, only to be visited by a mean-spirited MI5 agent named Stratton-Villiers(Christopher Lee) who matter-of-factly tells the policemen that their services are no longer needed for this particular case(in more sarcastically brilliant terms).Calhoun tells Stratton-Villiers that he and his partner will continue the investigation despite the agent's words(well, he tells him to fuck off, actually).Though the lawmen seem content to merely harrass the American student and his girlfriend to no end, even though they're the pair who brought the disappearance to light in the first place(what is it with cinematic cops and young people anyway?), the real reason behind the vanishing is much more convoluted and sinister...

Inspector Calhoun(Donald Pleasance)tells Stratton-Villiers(Christopher Lee) to "fuck off".Not very nice at all, is it, now?
The last surviving cannibalistic descendants of a small group of miners subsisting in a sealed off section of the Underground(trapped when a turn of the century mine collapsed upon them and the mining company simply gave up in retrieving any survivors and/or corpses as they went bankrupt) previously content to only eat each other as they grew old and sick, has taken to venturing out into the surrounding subway tunnels in search of the titular life-sustaining meat.One sickly pregnant woman, and one scabrous hulk of a man(Hugh Armstrong), neither of which would classify as "healthy-looking" under the medical scrutiny of many practitioners of such.The man resembles a Led Zeppelin roadie after one seventies acid trip too many, forever shambling after a tour bus that's long since been retired to blocks.Their subterranean digs are peppered with both the decaying remains of family members the man honours by showering gifts pilfered from recent victims upon, and the victims themselves, hung on hooks as morbid future food supplies, surrounded by scavenging rodents, and dimly lit by Victorian era gaslights.Bleech.When the man's vile mate finally expires due to disease(unidentified, but really, just pick one and you'll probably nail it), he takes it upon himself to blag Stephanie to replace her(when he isn't biting the heads off of rats, that is), leaving it up to Alex(who proves to be just as violent-prone as our sore-laden antagonist...who's the real savage,I say!) to pull off an exciting rescue at the finale.Mind the doors, indeed.

A different brand of 'terrifying':Lee playing a squirrelly MI5 agent with an unnerving smile.
Director Sherman would go on to helm the cult classic Dead and Buried in 1981, as well as Vice Squad, Wanted:Dead or Alive with Rutger Hauer, and Poltergeist III.Pleasance moved on to Tales That Witness Madness, The Mutations, and From Beyond the Grave after finishing this one.Christopher Lee?He only followed his cameo up with roles in The Satanic Rites of Dracula and The Wicker Man, while Norm Rossington appeared in the telefilm Frankenstein:The True Story, and later in my favorite tv series of all-time, I, Claudius.David Ladd was a seventies tv staple, while co-star Sharon Gurney disappeared off the radar after this film, despite her volcanically hot chelsea-esque hairdo within.Hugh Armstrong went on to a long career in British television, and an appearance in Don Coscarelli's 1982 sword and sorcery nod, The Beastmaster.Seek it out, give it a chance, and you'll most likely find yourself entertained by the final credits, if not feeling a bit peckish yourselves.Two wops.

"Mind the doors!"(I don't mind them, actually.They're okay, if not slightly overrated and very overplayed.)

R.I.P. Michael Gough

23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011

"The Abominable Dr. Phibes"(1971)d/Robert Fuest

As Vincent Price is one of the greatest character actors of all-time, so then is this perhaps the single most persuasive testimony to his brilliance upon the silver screen, and undoubtedly the acmatic cult classic of our time.His unrivalled presence and flair,stolen too early from this world in 1993,are never more apparent than in this Fuest vehicle,irreplaceable by any, savoured by all.He delighted in the inexhaustible array of acting gifts he was blessed with, and never shrank from the task of drawing raw emotion from an audience with them.As a tribute to this immortal legend of the cinema, and specifically, his performance in this paradigm of genre art, I thought we'd depart from the ordinary review just once, and dream up something special, that were he present to read himself, just might bring that familiarly sardonic grin to his face one more time.Forward...

"Nine killed her; nine shall die! Eight have died, soon to be nine. Nine eternities in doom!"
We embark on a fable about a man, Anton Phibes(Vincent Price)
whose Victoria(Caroline Munro)perishes on an operating table
whose vehicle wrecks as he recklessly drives
silently assisted by Vulnavia(Virginia North), who's decked out in sable
A concert organist and doctor of music and theology
Gruesomely disfigured, he rebuilds his face
from the responsible doctors he'll accept no apology
with Inspector Trout(Peter Jeffery)of the Yard assigned to the case
Inspired to blood vengeance by the plagues of the Pharoah
He plots the horrific demise of all parties involved
Dunwoody's bat-shredded body chills constables' bones to the marrow
with no clues to build on, the murder's unsolved
Hargreaves is strangled by a masquerade frog
and Longstreet is siphoned of every drop of his life
While no suspects get penned into the inspector's crime log
Phibes continues to avenge the premature loss of his wife

"There are a lot of strange men practicing medicine these days."
On a countryside road,Hedgepath freezes to death
while rats in the cockpit signal Kitaj's demise
A catapulted brass unicorn steals Whitcombs last breath
as Trout starts to flesh out where the real blame lies
He teams with Vesalius(Joseph Cotten)to predict the upcoming curse
Nurse Allen's face is devoured by locusts right under their noses
For Victoria's head surgeon,Trout fears the worst
when his first born is abducted, it's clear what his biblical dose is
He has just six minutes to free his son from a shackled gurney
before acid drops from above upon his young face
while Phibes makes preparations for his final journey
to disappear from this world with nary a trace
As Vulnavia destroys, the inspector arrives
embalming fluid replaces blood from jars on the shelf
The surgeon rescues his boy, but there's no sign of Phibes
It seems he saved the last plague of dark for himself.

"The curse of hail in the bloody middle of nowhere."
For any horror aficionado or fan of cult cinema this should be regular viewing, without an iota of resistance.Price, who had memorized everyone's lines in the script, and whose post-dubbed delivery drew legendary balks of disapproval from co-star Joseph Cotton, serves up a tour de force of under and overstated campiness and black humor.The supporting cast which includes Cotten(in a role Peter Cushing was forced to decline due to health issues),an uncredited Caroline Munro,Virginia North,the ever smarmy Terry-Thomas,and Hugh Griffith,are all solid in this witty and original revenge-aganza opus.The soundtrack by Basil Kirchin is appropriately incredible.The black humor,inventive deaths,and witty dialogue are second to none.An enjoyable sequel surfaced a year later.Both films are available as a double disc,essential to every self-respecting woprophile's collection.Bravo, dear Vincent.Four big ones to an all-time favorite.Highly recommended.

"...when the acid reaches him, he will have a face like mine!"

R.I.P. Tura Satana

Lee Jun-fan(Bruce Lee)

May your tea hold the sweetest leaves,Little Dragon.


27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973

R.I.P. Dennis Hopper 1936-2010

"Visiting Hours"(1982)d/Jean-Claude Lord

If you made a slasher pic in the horror-saturated early eighties,chances are,you made out alright for yourself,both at the box office and with ketchup-crazed gore fans worldwide.Unless your name is Jean-Claude Lord,that is.This guy took a cast of cult favorites like William Shatner,Lee Grant,Linda Purl,and scarfaced up 'n comer Michael Ironside(I've always dug this perrenial bad guy with the Nicholson hairline and the creepy grimace),who was coming off of his Scanners(1981) success the year before,a sinister hospital locale,effective incidental soundtrack,and nearly blew it altogether.The movie gods knew I was jonesing to see it after the teaser trailer aired on television,with the movie poster cleverly playing the hospital lighting into a huge skull(skulls are very choice,btw).So when I did see it,I walked out kinda feeling like I missed something.Years later,I can relievedly say that I didn't miss anything.And if you miss this entry,you might not miss much yourselves.

The Shat takes full advantage of his sparse screen time and mananges to shat out on his squeeze,Lee Grant.
Lee Grant has a television talk show,and while crusading for the rights of a battered woman who has killed her husband in self defense,she draws the attention of a letter-crazy bigoted control freak-cum-serial killer(Michael Ironside)who just so happens to keep a shrine of black and white photographs of his victims taped to the wall in his closet.One night after leaving the set,and saying goodbye to her producer/lover,William Shatner(who some may say was criminally underused here,but the fact is,the guy just wasn't given the opportunity to ham it up like he usually does,so you barely notice him!),she is surprised at her apartment by Ironside,who wants to shut her up with his stiletto,but while naked and wearing all her costume jewelry to boot.Okay,blech.Grant manages to survive long enough to be rescued by another tenant in her building and is whisked away to the local hospital,where she is doted upon and guarded by Linda Purl(of "Bad Ronald" and "Happy Days" fame),a nurse so selfless,she works overtime shifts a the hospital,volunteers at the free clinic,all while raising her own kids and developing a cure for Bell's Palsy.Okay,I added that last part,but you get the idea.

Kodak moments like this deserve to be put in an album before they get ruined.
When Ironside sees that he's missed his target,he travels to the hospital to finish the job,after massaging his stroke-ridden father's shoulders at the old folks home and biting the ass of a hapless frizzy blonde-haired prostitute during an abusive trick.This guy is relentless.He dons the uniforms of every hospital worker imaginable,from surgeon,to orderly,to floor buffer,cutting the airlines of elderly patients and snapping photos as the life rushes out of them, while ducking out of sight of the ever-watchful Purl.But he mainly enjoys shanking people in the labonza.I don't think I've ever seen a movie that passes itself off as a "slasher flick" that has as many gutstabs as this one.At one point he stuffs a stress-relief ball into the mouth of none other than Harvey Atkin(Morty from "Meatballs"...Hi Mickey!)and dispatches him with...that's right,folks.Right in the labonza.He follows Linda Purl home that night and I bet you'll never guess what he gives her and where when he ducks out from under the couch.You guys are good.The ass-bitten trick bitch breaks into Ironside's place and trashes it in a wall-pooped evening of vengeance,stumbling upon Michael's closet wall of death,but when the authorities rush to bring him to justice,he's already loaded up on pain meds,smashed his arm into a broken beer bottle(the lone gore effect that's worth an eff!),and had himself rushed to the hospital to finish off Lee Grant once and for all.But she shanks him in the labonza.I shit you not.The end.

Colt Hawker(Michael Ironside) in a pensive-yet-sexy leather wifebeater moment.
Definitely not a top-tier slasher by anyone's standards,despite a genuinely disturbing performance by fan fave,Ironside,and game faces worn by the entire cast,even Shatner when he turns up now and again.Lord went on to direct Eddie and the Cruisers II:Eddie Lives! and a lot of television.Grant who you'll recognize in genre films like Damien:The Omen 2 and The Swarm,went on to work in Lynch's Mulholland Dr.A likeable bad guy like Ironside has historically played throughout his career,has allowed to him to find work in everything from cartoons to the latest Terminator sequel.A lot of you nerds know more about what Shatner's been up to than I would,so I'll leave it at that.Not unwatchable,but not satisfying,due to the lack of grue,and multiple script flaws,this hospital horror gets prescribed two wops on the scale,and LOTS of shelf rest in the near future.

One broken bottle of beer in my arm,one broken bottle of beer...

L'ultimo Squalo(1981)d/Enzo G.Castellari

As the proudest of Italians,I honestly feel that we,as a people,never half-ass what we set out to do.Even when we're ripping off American blockbuster movies.So when Enzo Castellari's L'ultimo Squalo(Great White,U.S. title)was successfully sued by Universal Pictures and yanked shortly after release,Americans had little idea of what a bombastic trainwreck of a motion picture they were missing out on.With a four million dollar advertising budget,a cast of b-movie staple actors,an outta sight disco soundtrack by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis,a script that generously borrows from both Jaws(1975) and Jaws 2(1979),and a mechanical monster that looks to have cost no less than forty-six bucks to construct,Squalo is one of the finest pieces of exploitative garbage to have ever thread a movie projector.Seriously,this film is like Plan 9 From Outer Space with a dorsal fin.Steven Spielberg couldn't have topped this if Richard Dreyfuss looked directly at the camera fifty more times than he already did in the original screen adaption of Peter Benchley's(remember that name)novel.Though no region one dvd exists at this point,get your hands on a PAL format release,or a bootleg immediately.You won't believe your eyes.

"He's down therrrre...waiting to attack.That's been his patterrrn...right before he makes an attack." says sometimes Irish shark fisherman,Ron Hamer(Vic Morrow).
When one of Jenny Benton's(acting-wise think Keanu Reeves with breasts)cool windsurfing buddies disappears one morning,she enlists her father,writer Peter Benton(not Peter Benchley)to track down the wayward watersporter.Benton(James Franciscus)calls in grizzled sea captain Ron Hamer(Vic Morrow),who's stumbled across a chunk of the boy's surfboard while floating around off the coast of Port Harbor(and floating in and out of a bad Irish accent),to help in the investigation.After Hamer deducts that only a great white shark is large enough to do the kind of damage seen in the piece of surf equipment,both men deliver the bad news to Mayor Wells(Joshus Sinclair),who slags them off,as he busily prepares for a re-election campaign AND an annual regatta/windsurfing competition that will boost the sleepy town's tourism immeasurably.After discovering a local fisherman's swamped boat,his severed arm floating below,the mayor agrees to put up safeguards against this rogue menace,in the form of a metal underwater gate,which the shark abruptly busts through anyway.During the windsurfing competition,the beast surfaces and sends the townspeople and surfers into a frenzied panic,before hitting a rowboat with the mayor's assistant on it,sending him twenty feet straight up into the air(!)and back down into the water,where the shark eats him in front of tv cameras(!!).

Shark attack or dummy on a rowboat hitting a depth charge?You decide.
When the local media pressures the mayor to act,his son and friends take his father's boat out to hunt for the killer,which promptly bites off Benton's daughter's leg.Wells then takes a chopper out over the sea,hanging a rack of ribs on a towline over the water(the mere scent is all it takes,apparently),and when the shark pulls the winch directly off the helicopter,the politician falls into the surf,eventually getting both of his legs bitten off(!!!)trying to climb back into the chopper.The shark then sinks the chopper,as well.Later,Benton and Hamer,equipped with a singular dynamite belt(nothing like being prepared),take the sea captain's boat out to hunt the shark,but in the underwater melee,Hamer drowns.When the local newscrew ties off a chunk of meat to the pier as bait,the shark tears the entire dock loose,trapping a dozen or so people on it.As Benton drives Hamer's boat back into shore,he comes across what's left of the trapped citizens,and as he helps them onto the boat,he becomes trapped himself on the floating dock.As he fends off the shark's attacks with a plank of wood,Hamer's dead body comes to the surface(from miles away,mind you)and bumps into the edge of the dock.The writer pulls his lifeless buddy onto the floating deathtrap and takes the detonator from the deceased fisherman's still-intact dynamite belt,as the shark surfaces again,and promptly eats Hamer's corpse.At this point,Benton slo-mo jumps off the flotilla (for no apparent reason)and pushes the detonator,effectively blowing the 30-plus foot predator to smithereens.Back on dry land,the writer punches out a nosy television reporter and walks off with his wife,to try and pick up the pieces of his life.

Peter Benton(James Franciscus),a writer in a wetsuit,clutching a lifeless chunk of prosciutto(Vic Morrow)to use as bait.
The late Morrow,a poor man's Quint, regularly flubs his lines,talking in nonsensical circles in spots(his slideshow speech and on-boat pep talk to Franciscus are particularly heinous/hilarious),while Franciscus,a poor man's Chief Brody,is left to improv through it as the camera rolls.The impossibly fat and conical mechanical shark(constructed by Giorgio Ferrari,but too clunky and awkward to draw comparison to the automobile of the same name!),which does an awful lot of bobbing in and out of the water,is about as menacing as swimming pool cramps.Castellari,who directed everything from westerns to post-apocalyptic set pieces,generously fills in here with ample stock footage of great whites of varying sizes,tiger sharks,nurse sharks,and bull sharks.What's-ah the difference,eh?!!The gore is plentiful and passable,albeit mostly amputated legs and poor bastards bitten in half at the waist,with a severed arm or two thrown in for good measure.It's been lumped in among the worst movies ever made in some circles,and though I really couldn't argue against that distinction here,it IS highly entertaining,and uproariously funny in the most unintentional of ways.Hunt yourself down a copy,even though on the scale it bobs to the surface flaccidly with a meager score of:

Eh,squalo!Mangiate ed ingrassate!

Anthropophagous(1980)d/Joe D'Amato

Aristede Massaccesi,Joe D'Amato,Fédérico Slonisco,Romano Gastaldi,he certainly had more aliases than one of the Manson girls.Whatever you choose to call the guy,he was obviously a director with an interesting body of work.Up until his death in 1999,D'Amato(what we'll call him here for now)helmed gialli,westerns,horror,porn,horror-porn,action,period pieces,really everything under the sun.In my opinion,he was at his best shooting pornography,but his small portfolio of horror films has generated an avid base of loyal fans worldwide,with this particular entry among most fan favorites.The Italian busta poster adorned my dining room wall for the past seven years,much to the chagrin of my ex-wife and later,to the delight of my ex-girlfriend!I gotta admit,there is something endearing about this movie,even if I still may not be able to put my finger on it after all these years.

You'd think those giant headphones might have deflected the chop...
A young couple is enjoying an afternoon at the beach with their mutt,the girl going for a swim while the guy lays back in the sand and rocks out to some disco broadcast over headphones slightly smaller than Terex Titan tires.Ironically he's too busy grooving to see her get pulled under,or hear her screams,OR see whatever is lumbering out of the frothy surf,dripping his girlfriend's blood.He gets a meat cleaver slightly smaller than a sheet of wood paneling planted in his skull.Meanwhile,a group of friends vacationing in Greece embarks on a boat tour of the islands for some much needed rest and relaxation.A nice enough oddball named Julie(Zora Kerova)hitches a ride with the two couples,as she plans to meet up with a pair of friends on one of the Aegeans herself.During the trip,she breaks out some tarot cards and gives readings for her new friends,but when the cards foretell doom for everyone aboard,she throws them overboard into the Mediterranean.When they dock for the night on one of the islands,they find the town mysteriously deserted,with no clues as to why,save for a woman who disappears into the shadows.Back on the boat,pregnant Maggie(Serena Grandi)who's twisted her ankle and stayed behind,is abducted by an unsavoury,unseen character who likes breathing heavily.

Sprain your ankle? Soak it three times a day in a bucket full of seawater.The phony-looking latex head is an optional bonus.
As the group investigates the abandoned buildings,they stumble across a bizzare journal that tells an awful tale of a hunger-crazed man who decided to start eating his family when food and contact from the mainland was cut off.They stumble into a hysterical blind girl,who's been hiding in a wine cask with a butcher knife for protection,who warns them that the grim reaper(Luigi Montefiori),the same oatmeal-faced cannibal from the journal, has murdered the entire population of the town and eaten them.Though blind,she has managed to stay alive all this time thanks to her keen sense of smell,knowing whenever this fiend approaches.Soon fate rings a ghoulish dinner bell,and one by one,the group is stalked,chopped,hacked,and munched by this madman until the mindblowing climax,which you'll have to see for yourself,if you have the stomach for it!

What's for dinner tonight,Luigi? Liver and mushed wombs?
Media Blasters did an admirable job in rereleasing this one in a two disc set,restoring two notorious previously cut sequences that I'll refrain from describing(hint:I've alluded to them in the screenshots,and even for a director noted for outrageousness,they're pretty friggin' outrageous!),and a whole slew of extras that any self-respecting horror buff will devour like so many baked lobstertails smothered in melted butter,kind of like your humble N dined on tonight at his father's place.Unfortunately allergic to shellfish,despite a lifelong affinity for such feasts,the violent reaction I tried to avoid by dummying up with Benadryl beforehand caught up with me,ending my Christmas Eve festivities prematurely,and nearly turning my toes up!Hope yours was more pleasant than mine,regardless.D'Amato followed this shocker up with Absurd in 1987,not technically a sequel,though Eastman/Montefiori insists that it is just that.Whatever the case may be,this entry is not bogged down by its shortcomings(the film score,one or two of the gore pieces)and is a true cult classic that must be seen to be believed.Don't let the average Wopsploitation score fool you.Get your hands on it!

Ever famished,the grim reaper(Luigi Montefiori)namnams his own gutty-wuts.