A movie which somehow achieves the bizarre status of being ahead of its time and also a slavish copy of more popular contemporaries, Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City proves that the Italian exploitation filmmakers of yore were even better at their trade than anyone at the time even realized. Read More

Following the collapse of the cannibals and barbarian film genres in the early 1980s, director Umberto Lenzi took a brief detour before finishing off the decade with a bounty of no less than six cheap and cheesy horror movies. A detour right into the heart of war-torn Yugoslavia! Was Umberto documenting the ethnic cleansing that wracked the region following the fall of the Soviet empire? Was he leading a campaign of underemployed Italian exploitation movie directors to provide aid and comfort to displaced refugees by holding charity screenings of Nightmare City and Eaten Alive? Are you nuts? Who cares about that war? I’m talking about a real war! World War II! The one where a handful of Johnny Yanks could take on the entire German army and carry out impossible suicide missions on almost a weekly basis! Read More

Is The Dirty Dozen too mainstream for you? Did you find The Inglorious Bastards to be more machismo than your pansy constitution could handle? Are you looking for World War II action and adventure where there isn’t so much annoying emphasis placed on the action and adventure parts? Perhaps you’re just intimidated by the sheer size of these dirty dozens or these half a dozen bastards that are running around blowing up Nazi gear, killing Third Reich rats, and generally leaving the viewer breathless with the wanton disregard for everyone’s safety as they take on their suicide missions that have no chance in hell of succeeding! Isn’t there a movie for those of us who just want a teensy taste of WWII thrills and chills that won’t keep us up past our 7:30 bedtime? Read More

On the one hand, you have to wonder how a movie that featured scenes of our hero being tormented by what looked like twigs from trees could take six credited writers to produce it, but on the other hand one of those writers would go on and pen the Terence Hill classic Super Snooper. That reminds me of one of my favorite jokes: How many Italians does it take to write a really bad sword and sandal epic? Six – one to do the actual writing and five to oil up the guy named Gordon who will inevitably be starring in it. Read More

The bad news is that Fathom is just like the tedious Charade. The worse news is that it doesn’t star Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Read More

Captain Paul Stevens is living in the middle of turbulent times. He’s caught up in the evacuation of Dunkirk, discovers a bunch of his own men have been mysteriously killed and had their identity papers stolen, and perhaps most trying of all, is saddled with a hothead, borderline comic relief Sergeant named Mulligan. Mulligan is the sort of chap who delights in brawling with the French service men who have been relocated to London following the retreat from France. It’s a nice reminder to all us that wars aren’t just fought by good looking leading men, but also by pudgy ethnic types who fly off the handle frequently and have to be reigned in by their handsome and much more intelligent superiors. Read More

A lot of crappy stuff happens to David on his ski vacation from hell. He and his friends fall through a crevice into an ice cavern where his old lady suffers a broken leg. One of his friends gets impaled on something or other. His other friends get possessed and cause all sorts of mischief. He stabs either his girlfriend or an ancient witch to death or both. And he even has to put up with a blind priest’s crabby dog! Worst of all by far though is when he sees some haunted boobies shrivel up right before his very eyes, going from pert, perky, and perfect to withered, wasted, and woeful! Read More