"13 Frightened Girls" (1963) d/ William Castle

Contrary to popular belief, this one isn't about what's on Bill Cosby's voicemail. Instead, it's another offering from the schlock king, William Castle, some extremely light espionage fare that saw the filmmaker put out a worldwide casting call for the prettiest girls from thirteen countries for the production, filming slightly different versions showcasing each girl for their respective homeland. Personally, I would have rathered a plastic skeleton on a wire or a cheap joy buzzer under my theater seat, but that's just me. On board for this cold war Gidget Goes Mata Hari, are the likes of Murray Hamilton, who you'll remember as the mayor of Shark City in Jaws (1975), and Emil Sitka, who you may recall catching a custard pie or two in the mush throughout many Three Stooges shorts. In the lead is Kathy Dunn, who would go on to appear on Days of Our Lives in 1965. The story goes like this...


"Think of it as payback for the days of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force..."
Candy (Kathy Dunn) is the teenage daughter of an American ambassador, who's home on vacation from a prestigious finishing school with thirteen (fifteen, if you're actually paying attention) other international beauties. She's hopelessly in love with a C.I.A. agent named Wally (Murray Hamilton), a friend of her father's  who's already engaged to one of his colleagues nicknamed "Soldier" (Joyce Taylor) and old enough to be her Uncle Vaughn, the mayor of Amity Island...alright, alright,  no more Jaws jokes. Anyway, Wally's been slacking with his spying, and Candy eavesdrops on her old man (Hugh Marlowe) chewing him a new one during the chauffeured family ride, and if he doesn't provide some valuable information on a cat named Kagenescu pron-fuckin'-to, he'll be forced to seek employment elsewhere. I hear Amity Island is electing a new mayor soon, buddy. Candy vetoes the haughty tennis matches,  formal parties, and hours endlessly yapping on the phone to boys that normally comprises the vacation of a diplomat's daughter, and decides to help her unrequited love keep his job by becoming a secret agent named "Kitten". She dips her pet cat's paw in ink and signs her anonymous tip notes with its paw, too. What an adorable little coquette.


"...but Alex Kintner was supposed to be my prom date!", sobs Candy (Kathy Dunn).
Naturally, nobody in the entire American embassy can figure out who "Kitten" is, as she gathers more secret information than any agent under employment by the country. She's visiting Mai-Ling (Lynne Sue Moon), the Chinese communist friend she ought not have, when she stumbles upon Kagenescu's body hung on a meat hook in the basement, with her father's letter opener sunk into his bread basket, gathers the murder weapon, avoids detection by crawling on all fours (apparently, the Chinese are incapable of looking down when they're searching for someone), and delivers the vital evidence to dad anonymously through Wally. She courageously thwarts a planned student uprising by vamping it up for a Russian fellow masquerading as a Swede at his apartment, even sending him plummeting from the balcony to his death just as he's about to do the same to her. I can't see Sandra Dee pulling that one off. Things eventually heat up to where those sneaky Chinese kidnap "Soldier", demanding "Kitten" in exchange, hiring a super secret agent named "The Spider" to remove the pesky operative from the Asian equation. Does Candy get eighty-sixed on the job? See this one for yourselves and find out.


"Steam rice extra unless you buy combo!", exclaims Mai-Ling (Lynne Sue Moon).
Even by Castle's usually pretty tame standards, this one is torentially drippy and twice as bathetic as an hour and a half of Gidget reruns on Antenna TV, save for a few moments where Candy discovers the hanging corpse. Unless you've taken a fancy to Ms. Dunn, who resembles an early sixties version of Miley Cyrus, this is rough terrain for most genre folks to tread, I'd imagine. Castle completists will want to check it out, certainly, but speaking as one, myself, and somebody who's not entirely opposed to watching goofy shit now and again (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as an example...), I didn't draw much from it. Two Wops seems like a good fit for this baker's dozen of chicks, none of which seemed all that frightened by anything that transpired throughout the movie. Unfortunately, that's something we had in common.


"Cry all you want. I'm taking you to Cleveland."

"Baby Blood" (1990) d/ Alain Robak

I missed this twisted and darkly humorous piece of French horror from Alain Robak the first time around, and I admittedly regret it, as it fits quite nicely into the indie genre mindset (Frank Henenlotter, Peter Jackson, Jorg Buttgereit, etc) that I was immersed in and constantly seeking out, at the time. Far out shit like tonight's review remains high on my list of favorite things, and when a film is packed to the gills with splattery grue, lots of nudity involving massive breasts, murderous Teuthida-esque parasites, and an unusual, often very funny story tying it all together, who could step up to the podium and point the judgmental finger of blame at ol' Wop over here? That was a hypothetical question, don't break my cazzies.


Voici deux raisons d'enormes pourquois J'aime les francais.
A miserable French circus takes on a new leopard that's hosting an evolutionary parasite that ultimately results in the big cat exploding in a shower of gutty-wuts and thick slime in its cage one night. While the circus performers are searching for the responsible varmint, it slithers into Lohman's (Christian Sinniger) trailer where his top heavy, gap toothed, pregnant squeeze lies sleeping. Naturally, it shimmies into her body via the panty purse, and instantly begins influencing her life decisions, which had previously been less than optimal, as evidenced by her abrasive, abusive asshole boyfriend who thinks nothing of throwing her into the cage while animal trainers are working with tigers and lions. She jacks a pile of scratch from the till box and takes a taxi ride to a remote crack house, until Lohman tracks her down and earns himself a midsection shiv for his troubles. The parasite then tells her to slit the corpse's throat and drink the blood, which will provide nourishment for the creature now growing inside her. You see where this one is going?


Parkour isn't for everyone.
Pretty soon, Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou) is having public debates with her own swollen stomach, which has developed a fondness for her, despite being spawned from the sea, and destined to replace humans on the evolutionary ladder in a few million years. There are also several spirited arguments between them over which skeevy male perverts it wants her to murder, and there's no shortage of those here. See ugly, lecherous, misogynist bastards get scissored to death, get their heads crushed by oxygen tanks, get mowed down by cars, et cetera, at every juncture. Heavy splatter, dad. When she isn't traipsing about in front of the camera in her birthday suit, she's packing her meager belongings and rapidly vacating the premises, with her alien advisor calling the shots. Further complicating the duo's love-hate relationship are the horrific childbirth nightmares she's been experiencing. It all comes to a head as she nears her monstrous delivery, which I won't further spoil for you here, just in case this sounds like it might run directly up your genre alley (I'm guessing it does, in most cases).


"Pass the ball to my fetus, he's wide open for the slam dunk!"
Eighteen years later, a sequel entitled Lady Blood was produced. Needless to say, you should probably keep your eyes out for an upcoming review of that one, right here at the Wop. I'm forced to advise you to hunt down the Anchor Bay dvd release, as I'm blissfully ignorant concerning most Blu-ray releases, and this grainy arthouse gore movie is one whose impact would probably only be lessened by the concept of a high definition transfer. That's about it. On the scale, it's three Wops all the way, and comes with a strong recommendation from your genre guide and nutty pal over here. I love it, and you might, too. See, with all speed!


"Singing in the sunshine, laughing in the rain, hitting on the moonshine, rocking in the grain..."

"Faceless" (1987) d/ Jesus Franco

As we enter the second month of 2016 our thoughts quickly turn to love and romance, and the great lengths we go to prove it to our significant other, usually spending vulgar amounts of cash around the middle of the month, just to save face. In the world of cult cinema, saving face can take on entirely different connotations, and in the case of tonight's review, a late eighties gore-packed variation on his initial effort, director Jess Franco does an awful lot of it. In fact, he also ruins some faces, removes a few, and throws in a chainsaw and a power drill just for kicks. You've got to appreciate the man's unwavering dedication to capturing intimacy between the sexes on celluloid. The Richard Marx-esque late eighties synth pop soundtrack that (constantly)accompanies this one? Not so much. Not so fucking much at all. Still...


It's not often that we see Brigitte doing the poking. Just sayin'.
Dr. Flamand (Helmut Berger) witnesses his sister, Ingrid (Christiane Jean), block a vial of acid that was meant for him, chucked by a disgruntled, partially scarified former patient, with her own beautiful face, leaving her with a permanent Manwich grill, and leaving her brother to spend every resource available to him to restore her former beauty. Nathalie (Brigitte Lahaie) helps out by kidnapping unsuspecting donors from the Paris nightclub scene of the late eighties, locking them naked in cells in a private wing of their clinic, and subjecting them to the advances of Gordon, an especially creepy subordinate with a perm-ullet and no fucking eyebrows. When they abduct Barbara (Caroline Munro), a coked-out model, right from her photo shoot, her father (Telly Savalas) enlists a cat named Morgan (Chris Mitchum) who comes off as a skinny, less imposing Dirty Harry,  to fly to Paris and find his daughter. When Flamand and Nathalie consult Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) for helpful face transplant hints, he suggests they bring Dr. Moser (Anton Diffring), an escaped Nazi surgeon who specialized in such operations at Dachau, on board.


Also just sayin': I'd wrap those legs around my head like a turban.
Luckily for Flamand, Moser is seemingly available for work almost immediately, but he shows up and fumbles the first attempt, destroying a young whore's face, and forcing Gordon, chainsaw in hand, into action, as he beheads her with it. Meanwhile, Morgan is bullying Barbara's last employer (sort of a French Charles Nelson Reilly) for answers, leading to a ham-fisted comedic scrap with a muscle-bound gay named Doudou, and copping cheap feels from the headless corpses piling up at the morgue, to the dismay of the French authorities. In need of new face, Flamand and Nathalie come upon none other than Florence Guerin (as herself) in the dance club, talk her into some menage a trois action, and kidnap her for impending facepiece surgery. Don't sweat it, Flo. Can't be any worse than appearing in Bruno Mattei's Caligula et Messaline (1981). As Morgan traces Barbara's credit card to the clinic, where he also notices Nathalie sporting the jewel-encrusted watch that Babs was wearing when she went missing in the first place. Will he rescue her before Ingrid can adopt her good looks? Will Dr. Moser fumble the dermal mask again while staring at Nat's ample pornographic charms? Will Gordon get a decent haircut and grow his eyebrows out? Did Telly Savalas just speak French? The answers to these questions and more await you, once you've bagged yourselves a copy and screen it personally.


"I've eaten all the strawberry preserves, but that Florence Guerin face roll up looks appetizing."
Besides playing more than his fair share of archetypal Nazi villains over a film career that spanned nearly fifty years, Anton Diffring turned up in a few horror movies along the way, usually as an unhinged plastic surgeon, like this Jesus Franco update of his own pioneer genre effort, The Awful Dr. Orloff aka/ Gritos en la noche (1962), where he plays a nazi and an unhinged plastic surgeon. Faceless, which marked the second last role for Diffring before his death in 1989, would also be the last big screen appearance of Telly "Kojak" Savalas, but they're not the only recognizable names in the credits, as British scream queen Caroline Munro, Visconti regular Helmut Berger, Robert Mitchum's son Chris, Lina Romay, and even French porn goddess Brigitte Lahaie all make the scene. If you can manage to ignore the awful soundtrack, and some of the horrible eighties fashions on display, as hard as that is,  you'll probably enjoy Faceless, though it isn't nearly the best of it's kind, or even the best Franco approach on the subject matter. On the scale, a modest two Wops sounds fitting here. Give it a look.


"Don't be silly, darling...you're still very reverse-beautiful."