Topic: My review - unseen and unwatched january marathon

[Jimmy]

MOVIE / DVD INFO:

Title: The Milpitas Monster
Year: 1975
Director: Robert L. Burrill   
Rating: Unrated
Length: 1h20
Video:  Full Frame 
Audio:  English (Mono)
Subtitles: None

Stars:
Paul Frees  - Narator
Douglas A. Hagdohl
Scot A. Henderson   

Plot:
A horror movie about a monster that has been created from a garbage dump in Milpitas, a town near San Francisco. This monster attacks a party at the local high school. Before he can seriously threaten the town, however, he comes into fatal contact with the town's TV transformer tower.

Extras:
Theatrical Trailer

My Thoughts:

With this movie we are at the amateur hour and that's why I will not be to hard on him. The movie is a high school project and we could see that a lot of efforts was done and the entire city have contributed (the police departement, the fire department and many store)...They even got an helicopter !!! There no real actor in the movie with the exeption of Paul Frees the narator who is a voice over actor since 1942 and his voice is use on many rides at Disneyland. So there are a lot of missing lines and card reading. There also a problem with the lightning since many time we pass to night to day to night, but they probably didn't think to film it all day for night. The monster is awfull (just look at the trailer), but for a group of student without experience it's not so bad (I've seen worse on some « professional » movie). The only thing that I really don't like is the drunk guy that they use as a comic relief, they use it way too much (2 times is funny, but after 10 times that's not so funny).

Not a movie that I really recommand, but if you get it for a cheap price maybe you will like it. At least it's better made than the movies that I've done with my friends at 16 years old (thank God the films doesn't exist anymore )

Rating : 1,5/5

Movie trailer

[Jimmy]

MOVIE / DVD INFO:

Title: Moonlighting Wives
Year: 1964
Director: Joe Sarno   
Rating: Unrated
Length: 1h30
Video:  Full Frame 
Audio:  English (Mono)
Subtitles: None

Stars:
Tammy Latour - Mrs. Joan Rand 
Gretchen Rudolph - Nancy Preston
John Aristedes - Al Jordan
Joe Santos   
June Roberts 

Plot:
1960s suburbia becomes a hotbed of rampant adultery and illicit sexual encounters in legendary sexploitation director Joseph Sarno’s early erotic classic, Moonlighting Wives.
Joan Rand (Tammy Latour) is a shrewd, sexy, disgruntled housewife and mother who yearns for the better things in life. Unbeknownst to her husband, and with the help of a friend, Joan turns her office stenography service into a thriving yet well-concealed prostitution ring that has local law enforcement (including character actor Joe Santos in an early role) baffled. Needing more and more willing young housewives to grow her business with wealthy clientele and to satisfy the town’s increasing demand for naughty female fun, Joan gives adulterous and well-connected golf pro Frank a piece of the action. Joan’s appetite for the good life soon leads her on a sensual and glamorous odyssey of blackmail, wife-swapping and orgiastic nightlife as she and her stable of gals mingle and swing with the country club set. As the money continues to roll in, Joan’s dereliction of her domestic responsibilities leads her disgusted husband straight into the arms of a nubile, 18-year-old babysitter…and brings her one step closer to the police.

Extras:
Interview with Joe Sarno
Joe Sarno Trailer Vault

My Thoughts:

Joe Sarno is one of the best director when we talk of 60's exploitation pictures and like you already know those movies are some of my favourite. The majority of my collection is made of those sixties and seventies movies and I blind buy a lot of them. This one is base on a true story and countains the usual theme of wife-swapping who appear in the majority of the Sarno's films. The story is well construct and play like a regular sixties movie that's not a surprise that it was a succesfull one financially. The acting is superior to what we find usually in the exploitation pictures : Tammy Latour and John Aristedes are particullary good, but this is Gretchen Rudolph (credited here as Jan Nash) who steal the show as a young woman manipulated for joining the prostitution ring. The soundtrack is made of jazz music and it's give a good atmosphere to the film. Don't expect anything really shocking the movie countains no nudity or violence, but the subject was a touchy one 40 years ago. Not as good as « The Swap and How They Make It » who is my favourite film made by Joe Sarno, but it's one of his best. This is a movie recommanded if you share my taste, but if this isn't the case don't look at it since the risk are high that you will find it boring.


Rating : 3,5/5

Movie trailer
Not really a trailer, but this is the intro of the movie

[Najemikon]

Jimmy, I think you're doing a cracking job here. Great reviews of some unusual titles. I know there isn't many comments, but I wanted you to know that I'm enjoying reading these. 

[Jimmy]

Thanks! I know that my movies are not the most know one, but I don't buy or watch many new movies (just an exemple I haven't seen any of the Pirates of the Carabean movies). I have made some of my friends appreciate them for what they are : good movie and not movie to laugh at. I personally think that the actors/actress and directors of that period were more in love with the cinema contrary to now where all is about money. I think that I will review my entire series of movie released by Something Weird Video (87 DVD and more than 100 films, far from the complete catalogue but I'm working on it) after this marathon and if you like the review here you will probably like my SWV review.

[Jimmy]

MOVIE / DVD INFO:

Title: Asylum Erotica
Original Title: La Bestia uccide a sangue freddo
Year: 1971
Director: Fernando Di Leo     
Rating: Restricted
Length: 1h26
Video:  Full Frame 
Audio:  English (Mono)
Subtitles: None

Stars:
Klaus Kinski - Dr. Francis Clay   
Margaret Lee - Cheryl Hume 
Rosalba Neri - Anne Palmieri
Jane Garret - Mara   
John Karlsen - Professor Osterman   

Plot:
Dr. Francis Clay (Klaus Kinski, Herzog's Nosferatu) is the head doctor at an upstate asylum that house suicidal and mentally disturbed women. However, the asylum turns into a house of horror when a cloaked killer begins brutally murdering the patients using medieval weapons and torture devices, and Dr. Clay find himself among the suspect.

Who is the killer ? When will he strike again ? Will the nightmare ever end ? Find out in this horrific tale of terror that will keep you at the edge of your seat untill the climstic conclusion !

Extras:
None, not even a menu

My Thoughts:

There one fact that I've learned from horror movie watching : dreaming can kill you... Wait this have nothing to do with this movie. The more relative fact is that an asylum is not a good place to stay and who you are is not important. You are at risk if you are a patient, a nurse or a doctor. Now if the asylum is an old castle with a collection of medieval weapon and an iron maiden (not the metal band, but the torture instrument who are less fun), the idea of be there doesn't seems really interesting. But if you want a positive point for the asylum, the patients and some nurse loose their clothes easilly and Rosalba Neri is treated because she's a nymphomaniac.

So does this sound interesting? Sure, but... Sadly the version of the movie that I own is incomplete (11 minutes are cut) and that make the movie quite bad. Everytime that something interesting happen (violence or sex) the movie cut and it's evident since the editing job is not very professional. All the cast look bad, but that's the fault of the dubbing job (I've seen Klaus Kinski, Margaret Lee, Rosalba Neri and  John Karlsen in other movies and I know that they are talented). The end make no sense, it looks like the director had forgot that he need a killer and he had decided to choose the guy who was in the movie for 3 minutes in the beginning. Just to give a concrete exemple it's like if in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre the killer would have been the drunk man in the cemetary (hopes that I don't spoil it for you  )

But the movie looks certainly interesting and I will try to find a complete version. I'm sure that a version was release somewhere in Europe. So keep in mind that my rating is for the edit version that I own and not for the complete original Italian movie.


Rating : 2,0/5

Movie trailer
Not the one for the movie cut here, but the original Italian one.

[Achim]

Jimmy, I think you're doing a cracking job here. Great reviews of some unusual titles. I know there isn't many comments, but I wanted you to know that I'm enjoying reading these. 

I want to second that! A lot!

[Jimmy]

MOVIE / DVD INFO:

Title: Terror from Under the House 
Year: 1971
Director: Sidney Hayers     
Rating: Unrated
Length: 1h29
Video:  Full Frame 
Audio:  English (Mono)
Subtitles: None

Stars:
Joan Collins - Carol Radford   
James Booth - Jim Radford   
Ray Barrett - Harry 
Sinéad Cusack - Rose   
Kenneth Griffith - Seely   

Plot:
A familly's youngest daughter is brutally is brutally raped and murdered. They try to put the tragedy behind them but this prove to be almost impossible.

When the familly learns that the prime suspect of the crime have been released by the police due to lack of evidence, they decide to take matters into their own hands. With the help of a friend whose daughter was also murdered, they go after himself to "teach the guy a lesson". Unfortunally things go from bad to worse.


Extras:
Filmographies

My Thoughts:

The title here is not the original use at the release of the film and it is certainly confusing. The original one is « Revenge » and its maybe a generic title, but it tell what the movie is about. The film is exactly what the plot describe, but don't worry we don't see what happen to the young girl. This is a movie where the victims had to act since the justice doesn't work for them, this genre was quite popular in the seventies with Dirty Harry and Death Wish as the most known entry for the genre. The movie here is not the more violent of this category, but I've appreciate it. When they say that it's go worse they told the truth, the father's son flee with is father second wife after he had rape her (nothing graphic in the scene) and honestly this is hard to see what could be worst for the father. The end is good too, since the director play a trick on the viewer :

(click to show/hide)

The man who was held captive in the basement is not the killer, so the father realize is error, help him and feel very guilty (something that I can understand). But when we think that its all over the movie take a new twist : the man try to attack another young girl in the house and finally we understand that he is really the killer

. One last thing, I didn't know that Joan Collins was that beautifull at 38 years old, she was more natural looking than what I remember from Dynasty (I was force to watch that).   

Rating : 3,0/5

[Najemikon]

Check her out in this British thriller from 1954...

[Jimmy]

Thanks for the recommandation, the plot looks interesting so I'll place an order next week.

Jon, Do you know that there are no link for your phpdvdprofiler collection in your signature, just an image?

[Najemikon]

Yeah, I keep meaning to fix that! 

[Jimmy]

MOVIE / DVD INFO:

Title: The Last Supper
Original Title: Saigo no bansan
Year: 2005
Director: Osamu Fukutani       
Rating: Extremely Mature
Length: 1h32
Video:  Widescreen 
Audio:  Japanese (Stereo), English (Stereo)
Subtitles: English, Spanish

Stars:
Masaya Kato - Doctor Yuji Kotorida     
Hibiki Takumi - Kanako   
Hitomi Miwa - Ami   
Fumina Hara - Saki Minemura   
Katsuya Kobayashi - Detective Shimoda     

Plot:
A brilliant plastic surgeon becomes consumed by an obsession to taste human flesh ! By employing increasingly ingenious methods, he begins a murder spree to ensure that his supply of meat never runs low ...

Extras:
Trailers (not for this movie)

My Thoughts:

This one is, in my opinion, about the last taboo of the occidental society : cannibalism. Usually every movie who touch this subject is set in a « primitive » society and we are not involve personally as a viewer. But this one is set in Japan and this is exactly the same thing that North America or Europe (except for the tentacles monster, but it's another story). The doctor is never shown as a bad guy, he kill to eat and when it is not the case he react to a situation to defend himself. The consumption of human meat is compare as a sexual act (we eat the people that we love) and is as adictive than any illegal drug. But, did I like the films. It's not easy to answer clearly, sure I find it's original and it's made with good taste (no a bad word play), but... It involve the viewer and you understand the doctor way of life. I'm not a vegetarian so I don't see what is bad in the fact to eat animal meat, I don't think that it would be a problem for me to a cat or a dog. But, the human eating in this film is presented as something appealing and sometimes you think that yes it seems a great pleasure and something to experience. Don't worry I will not eat any human after that. This film is a perfect exemple of a movie who are not for the non adult, it's to near of the reality (the film countains a human market in China and this is not something that I think impossible) that a viewer must be very mature to understand it. I know that my review doesn't come out really well, but I really recommand this movie.
 

Rating : 4/5

[Najemikon]

You used the word "occidental". That's point scoring, right there! Your review intrigued me though. I might look this one up.

[Achim]

I am getting interested in this one as well...


Jimmy, have you seen Dumplings (Gaau ji)? It's a Hong Kong film with a slightly similar theme. It was released in R1 as a segment of the 3 Extremes DVD, and as a bonus the full film was included on a second disc (on a side note: interesting to see how to make a short film out of a full feature).

Trailer

[Jimmy]

Don't tell me that you where not interested by "The Curse of Lizzie Borden" 

No seriously I've never seen it, but I've put it on my Amazon wishlist and since it isn't really costly (12.03 CDN$) I will probably ordered it next week.
If I trust the Amazon review the two others movie aren't really great, but if I would have trust all the review my collection would have been 100 DVD at much 

Edit : pass the order and as usual I've ordered much more 

3 Extremes - Fruit Chan (I trust you on that, but honestly the synopsis looks interesting)       
Ebola Syndrome - Herman Yau (I've it on my wislist since too long)
Twisted Sisters - Wolfgang Büld (I like Penetration Angst one of his other film with almost the same cast, not a big risk)
Blackwoods - Uwe Boll ( )

I will have to wait 9 or 12 days, but it's not the end of the world

[Achim]

No seriously I've never seen it, but I've put it on my Amazon wishlist and since it isn't really costly (12.03 CDN$) I will probably ordered it next week.
If I trust the Amazon review the two others movie aren't really great, but if I would have trust all the review my collection would have been 100 DVD at much 

Dumplings has a similar theme as The Last Dinner (which seems not to be available in R1...?). I don't know what those reviews said, so I'll should up for now not to spoil anything.

Takeshi Miike's story has it's moment, but in overall was a little too messed up (not in a gore kind of sense; it's actually not gory at all). I did however enjoy the Korean story by Chan-wook Park, it has it's twists and turns, which is what one can expect from such kind of short films. Will be interested to hear what you think later.

Edit : pass the order and as usual I've ordered much more 

I know that feeling...