Naked & Caged: The Master Race...And The Monster!

Video Nasty #16

YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED!

The Beast In Heat

1977

A TERRIFYING STORY OF VIOLENCE AND MADNESS.

HORRIFYING EXPERIENCES IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE S.S.!

Original Italian title: La Bestia In Calore

Alternate titles: SS Hell Camp, Horrifying Experiments Of The SS Last Days, S.S. Experiment Camp 2

NTSC Running time: 90:00 +/- 5 minutes.  (An explanation for this wildly vague running time is contained in the article below.  Most sources quote the length at 86 minutes, so that's about right.)

Directed by Luigi Batzella (as Ivan Kathansky)

Written by Luigi Batzella (as Ivan Kathansky), Dialogue by Lorenzo Artale

Produced by Roberto Perez Moreno

Starring: Macha Magall, Salvatore Baccaro (as Sal Boris), Gino Turini (as John Braun), and a whole lotta naked people!

Body Count: 23 one-on-one murders, with two extended (and bloodless) battle sequences netting approximately 23 kills apiece, for a total of 69!

Naked People: 11 - 7 women and 4 men have full-frontal nude scenes.

Availability: Uncut Region 1 DVD from Media Blasters under the title SS Hell Camp.

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Nazis, rape, torture, nudity, gore, sexualized violence.  Did I mention the sexualized violence?

What was cut: Nothing.

Current UK Status: The Beast In Heat has never been submitted for cinema or video classification.  It remains banned in the UK

The Beast In Heat was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

Welcome to the wonderful, twisted world of Nazisploitation.

Dr. Kratsch (Macha Magall) is an SS officer and "scientist".  Her latest discovery: a strange serum that turns (men? apes? Either way, it doesn't matter) into raving, horny mongoloids.  She has one caged in her "lab".  He's big.  He's hairy.  He's naked.  And his master loves giving him naked women to play with.

That is how the film begins: Dr. Kratsch, over the objections of her colleague (who we never see again, she probably had him killed), gives her pet a girl to "play" with.  As soon as the unfortunate girl (and the audience) sees the monster (Salvatore Baccaro), she tries to get away...but no dice there, chickie.  Shoved into the cage, she is enthusiastically raped by the rapacious hulk, giving all assembled the show of virility that Dr. Kratsch had promised.  The doctor approaches a male officer who is observing.  She sticks her hand in his shirt, asking if he is excited.  Upon his affirmative, she slaps his face and chastises him: Nazis are not supposed to get excited about anything, according to her.  And, as if to show off her hypocrisy, she then approaches a female officer, who is also very excited, and they share a long, open-mouthed kiss.  Apparently it's only the women who are allowed to be aroused by all that rape.  Go figure.

Scenes like this are why the film is so notorious.

But before you run right out to find it, a word of fair warning: The bulk of this film is taken up with scenes from Quando Suona La Campana (When The Bell Tolls), another film Batzella directed 7 years earlier.  It's standard war movie stuff: soldiers, resistance fighters, lots of battle scenes where people who have been machinegunned at close range clutch their chests and fall over without a drop of blood spilled.  Only the brutal, bloody lab scenes were filmed for The Beast In Heat, the rest is wartime melodrama...not that there aren't a few thrills, like the scene where a German soldier rips an infant from its' mother's arms, tosses it in the air, and treats it to a volley of machine gun fire.  Poignant.

The accepted estimate is that about 40 minutes of new footage was added to create The Beast In Heat, but I can't vouch for that.  It actually seemed like a bit less, but I wasn't able to tell.  The DVD I viewed, which is almost undoubtedly an uncut print (thank goodness), did not have a counter on it.  Score one for VHS, which has its' time display in the machine, not on the tape.  Ever notice how "modern technology" is business slang for "craftier ways to screw the customer"?  But I digress.  It is these sequences in the lab that make the film worth seeing.  Not surprisingly, they are also why the film is controversial.  We've all seen war movies, and they're not all Saving Private Ryan or We Were Soldiers.  Most of them are boring as hell.  When The Bell Tolls isn't bad, but it's nothing special, either.  Resistance fighters kill soldiers.  Soldiers rape and kill resistance fighters.  There is one sequence that deserves special mention:

Don Vincenzo (Brad Harris) has been collaborating with the resistance, yet he is conflicted about the violence involved.  Towards the end of the picture, when soldiers storm his church in an attempt to extract information, Don Vincenzo has had enough.  He resists, engaging in fisticuffs with his uninvited guests because he hopes to save their female hostage.  In a film where literally dozens of people have already been casually gunned down, Nazis armed with firearms fight a priest with one hand on their guns before leaving, routed, at the arrival of Drago (Gino Turini), our mustachioed Italian hero.  Wait, what?

I'm guessing that this implies a bit of reverence for the church on the part of the filmmakers.  Viewing this scene, it made me think (like many things do) about the films of Lucio Fulci.  Fulci was known for openly ridiculing and lambasting the church, always with some contempt, be it in his comedies [All'onorevole piacciono le donne (Nonostante le apparenze... e purché la nazione non lo sappia), which translates to The Senator Likes Women (Despite appearances... and provided the nation doesn't know), often shortened to the much easier to fit on a marquee The Eroticist], period drama [Beatrice Cenci], or his violent thrillers [Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino, aka Don't Torture A Duckling].  Clergy are regularly corrupt or murderous in Fulci's films, villainous figures.  Batzella, working in the same place at the same time as Fulci, won't even allow a shot to be fired in the church...by Nazis with a hostage who are holding loaded guns!  This scene was clearly lifted from When The Bell Tolls, so perhaps there is something else there in terms of that story, but I don't think so.  Throughout The Beast In Heat, the Nazis are shown to have no compassion for anything (did I mention skeet shooting a baby?), so why in the world would they allow themselves to be beaten up by a priest and a stereotype?  They wouldn't.  Is this a personal commentary by the director...or was When The Bell Tolls just a really vanilla war film?  I don't know.  But it's fun to speculate.

There also seems to be a question of what the director's real name was.  He used several pseudonyms, which was common, but while most folks who engage in the practice leave little doubt as to which name is the genuine article, this man either wasn't talking...or no one knows enough about him.  Let's look at what we know.  Born in San Sperate, Sardinia in 1924, our man made 15 films as a director, 20 as an actor.  His film career ended in 1980, but he lived another 28 years until he died from Parkinson's disease at the age of 84.  Some claim his real name to be Luigi Batzella, others claim Paolo Solvay, which has that smoother, shorter feel common to family names in Sardinia.  For his true name, my money's on Solvay, but for the purposes of this article, I'm going to stick with Batzella.  A guy named Solvay would make sensitive movies about love in times of strife.  A guy named Batzella might punch your mom in the face while he pisses in your soup.  And isn't that why I watched The Beast In Heat?

Oh yes, it is.  And when we're not watching bloodless battle sequences or beautiful countryside, it's full-blown sex and violence!  That's why I bought a ticket.  Hell, I think that's why anyone who's ever watched this thing bought a ticket.  And when it's time for the goods, they are delivered with style.  A naked woman is tied to a table, her torso burned by a heated bucket, and then a ferocious pair of guinea pigs eat her flesh (There are no typographical errors in the previous sentence).  A nude man is strung up by his heels, dunked furiously in a trough of water, and whipped mercilessly...all at the same time.  When Dr. Kratsch has three naked male rebels tied up for her own personal use, one of them calls her disgusting and "nothing more than a bitch in heat!"  Which brings to mind the obvious question, who is the real beast?  The monster...or the creator?  The answer here, I think, is both.  Kratsch cuts the man's dick off (good for the films budget, but unfortunate for the audience, this happens offscreen), taking sadistic pleasure in it.  Her creation, meanwhile, is busy raping another naked chick.  The next effect is the best, most revolting, scene: The monster tears the woman's pubic hair off and eats it...all in a graphic close up.  I truly think that the only reason this attack is shown and the castration is not was due to budgetary reasons.  Batzella had already shown he wasn't afraid to put some cock on the screen, and I applaud him for it.  But the cost of creating a fake, somewhat realistic, severed penis, is prohibitive compared to asking an actress to shave and daubing her with some fake blood.

So how does it all turn out for Dr. Kratsch and her creation?  You'll have to watch it to find out.  Yes, I am recommending that you track down and watch The Beast In Heat.  I love a film that can make you laugh and cringe at the same time.  I love movies that aren't afraid to handle taboo subjects in irreverent ways.  And I love movies that don't pretend to be anything but what they are.  The gore effects are decent, not great.  The sex is terribly simulated, some of the worst I've ever seen (Attention Nazi guy, you do know that you can't have sex with your pants covering your wang, right?).  The dialogue is WAY better than anything you would expect, low on camp, high on wartime philosophy.  And Salvatore Baccaro has to be seen to be believed.  Bravo to this man, whose acromegaly cut his life short in 1984 at the age of 39.  But what a way to be remembered!  (For a glimpse of this striking man in a more realistic setting, you can watch for Salvatore playing himself, a humble flower vendor, in Dario Argento's masterful giallo Profondo Rosso.)

That's all for now, kids.  I love hanging out with you and it's always a blast.  Until next time, I'll leave you with my usual caution.  Stay the fuck away from Nazis.  I didn't need to tell you that, right?  Well, I did it anyway.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

84 Years Ago...

Happy birthday to Lucio Fulci, Godfather of Gore, Il Maestro, and Gatekeeper of the 7th Door.

He passed away on March 13, 1996 from complications of his diabetes...but anyone who has seen his films is aware that the dead don't die.  FULCI LIVES!!!

So stay out of The House By The Cemetery, or you too will know Fear In The City Of The Living Dead and learn what lies in wait for us in The Beyond.  Heed this warning.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

The Panic Continues: Tom Six And His Centipedes.

In case you haven't heard by now (horror fans are buzzing about it no matter where they live), you can hear it here: The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), the latest film from Dutch director Tom Six, has been rejected for classification by the BBFC.  Let's take a look at the teaser trailer:



As you can see, he is well aware of the polarizing effect his film has had.  The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is a film that allegedly made Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) physically ill.  I was bored stiff.  The tale centers on Dr. Heiter, a German doctor living alone who kidnaps three tourists and sews them together, mouth-to-anus, to create a new kind of creature.  The film's tagline "100% Medically Accurate" is, according to Six, true: if given an IV drip to supplement the rear segments' diet of feces from the front segment, they could "live for years".  Accurate or not, the first film is mostly a statement about fascism and the horror of Nazi medical experiments.  There is little gore, and most of what makes the film so uncomfortable is left in the imaginations of the viewers.  Not so with the sequel, as the BBFC will attest.  In their own unique brand of paradoxical moralizing, they've included graphic descriptions of why they rejected the film in their press release on the subject.  I hesitate to print it here because it contains spoilers about the events of the film, so I will instead post a link to the BBFC and let them do the spoiling:

THC2 BBFC Press Release

Why am I writing about this?  Because it shows that, while the board may have "loosened" their restrictions in the last 30 years, they are a long way from allowing truly free expression in film.  Also, as keen eyed readers may have noticed, Full Sequence was NOT submitted for cinema classification.  A direct-to-video release was sought.  That would have been a nasty video, indeed.

Many UK horror fans are outraged by this turn of events, and I can't say I blame them.  What makes this almost funny is that, in the "digital age", all the BBFC has done is ensure that it will be downloaded illegally thousands of times over as soon as it is available.  Horror fans who would normally respect the artists and pay money for their own DVD copy are not given the option to do so, and must resort to piracy.  The BBFC has robbed the rightful copyright owners of hundreds of thousands of pounds in revenue.  Six Entertainment has six weeks to appeal the decision, and if they can overturn this one, it would be an incredible coup.  Here's hoping.

If it remains banned, maybe we should stock up on DVDs and mail them, unsolicited, to our friends across the Atlantic.  Could they arrest me for that?  I should check the customs laws to make sure.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

A Victorian Massacre...Driven By Greed!

Video Nasty #15

Blood Rites

1968

A GRUESOME ORGY OF HUMAN MUTILATION!

MAD CREATURES OF THE NIGHT EXISTING ONLY FOR SENSUAL SADISTIC MOMENTS OF HUMAN SLAUGHTER!

Actual title: The Ghastly Ones

NTSC Running time: 71:43

Directed, Written, Shot, Edited, Sound, Costumes & Set Design by Andy Milligan

Produced by Jerome-Fredric (quite possibly a pseudonym for Milligan)

Starring: Veronica Radburn, Maggie Rogers, Hal Borske, Anne Linden, Carol Vogel, Eileen Hayes

Body Count: 9 + a rabbit.

Availability: Region 1 DVD from Something Weird Video, paired with another Milligan film, Seeds

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Those BBFC favorites, gore and rape.

What was cut: No cuts made because...

Current UK Status: Blood Rites has never been submitted for cinema or video classification.

Blood Rites was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

As you can probably tell from the trailer above, this movie sucks.  It's poorly made, shoddily edited, woodenly acted and sounds like a pillow has been placed over the microphone.  The fact that it's still a lot of fun is a welcome surprise.

We open with another of those shock openers that mean nothing: A man and woman in Victorian dress enjoy an afternoon in the countryside.  They notice a strange house and sit for a moment.  They are then set upon by a drooling idiot who hacks them to pieces.

Roll Credits.

Three sisters and their husbands are summoned to New York for the reading of their father's will...many years after his death.  Apparently he was a bit of a weirdo.  The couples must spend a weekend at his house "in sexual harmony", after which the bequests will be handed out.  They arrive at the sprawling estate and meet Hattie, Martha and Colin, the servants.  Colin is recognizable (barely) as the loony from the opening.  He's still batshit and tears open a live rabbit with his teeth while hauling the luggage.  The couples settle in, and then a hooded figure begins prowling and killing.  Will our stuffy, upper crust heroes care enough about what's going on to even attempt to solve the mystery?

Nope.  They don't bother.  It's actually pretty funny.

The murders are gory, and the effects are so inept that the cheesiness actually makes them more disturbing than they would be otherwise.  Andy Milligan made a lot of movies.  What I've read about him paints a picture of a flamboyantly gay dressmaker and theater geek who hated all women due to harsh treatment from his domineering mother.  It shows in this film: The women are almost all greedy and domineering.  The one who isn't gets raped by her husband.  Early on, Richard (Fib LaBlaque) has to borrow money so he and his wife can travel to New York.  Upon his wife's insistence, he borrows from his brother Walter, a gay priest who desperately wants to resume a sexual relationship with his brother.  Wow.  I'd say you can't make that shit up, except Milligan did and it's so twisted that I can't do much except respect it.  What can I say?  I love bad, evil movies, and The Ghastly Ones certainly qualifies.

I don't have much else to say about this one, except that numerous sources list this film as running 81 minutes.  I can't find a print at that time, and if you send me one, I'll watch it...but this was so crappy that I'm not sure that I care.  No recommendation for this one unless you're someone who really loves bad filmmaking.  But I can say this: at least it wasn't Faces Of Death.  I'd sooner watch The Ghastly Ones five times in a row than submit to that shitstorm again.

So avoid crumbling estates on Staten Island, lest you meet a gibbering idiot who packs a hatchet.  I'm staying FAR away.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Driven To Kill By His Own Insane Blood!

Video Nasty #14

Absurd

1981



...BRUTAL!...SHOCKING!...VIOLENT!...SAVAGE!

...NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!

Original Italian title: Rosso Sangue (translation: Blood Red)
aka: Horrible, Monster Hunter, Anthropophagus 2
NTSC Running time: 93:50
Directed by Aristide Massaccesi (as Peter Newton)
Written by Luigi Montefiore (as John Cart)
Produced by Donatella Donati and Massaccesi (as Joe D'Amato; he also takes credit for cinematography using the name Richard Haller.)
Starring: Luigi Montefiore (as George Eastman), Edmund Purdom, Katya Berger, Kasimir Berger, Annie Belle, Charles Borromel, Ted Rusoff
Body Count: 6
Availability: Uncut Region 1 DVD under the title Horrible from Mya Communications [although, like There Was A Little Girl (see Madhouse,Video Nasty #4), Horrible only appears on the disc and packaging.  The print itself bears the original title, Rosso Sangue].

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Extreme gore murders.

What was cut: 2 minutes 32 seconds of unspecified cuts to the original cinema release, which was classified 18 on August 22, 1983.

Current UK Status: Absurd has never been submitted for video classification.  It remains banned in the UK.

Absurd was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

I had been looking forward to seeing Rosso Sangue since I first heard about it in the late 1990s, but it was so hard to find at that time that I nearly forgot about it.  Now, with an uncut DVD release that is easy to locate here in the states, I can see why the DPP went after this one...and why a murderous German black metal band took its' moniker from this film.

Absurd delivers the goods.

After white titles on a black screen, we find Mikos Stenopolis (Luigi Montefiore, the Anthropophagus Beast himself) running from another man (Edmund Purdom, whose next role was the college dean in Pieces) through the countryside.  We intercut this with Katya and Willy Bennett (real-life siblings Katya and Kasimir Berger) and their babysitter.  Katya is bedridden and wearing a neckbrace, though we are never told if this is an injury or an illness that's keeping her down.  Meanwhile, Mikos tries to scale a wrought iron gate, but is impaled on the spikes at the top when his pursuer grabs his leg and pulls.  The fence is, of course, the Bennett's, and Mikos soon bursts into the home, clutching a spill of his own entrails in a shot that recalls the end of Antropophagus.  Mikos collapses.  An ambulance is called.

In the operating room, the doctor is horrified to see that Mikos' body is healing itself on the operating table.  The police begin investigating the strange man and his pursuer, who is soon revealed to be a Spanish priest (he is never named, referred to simply as Father).  Upon exiting the operating room, the surgeon spouts.  "This is absurd!  It's just absurd!" regarding the remarkable physical properties of Mikos.  It seems his blood coagulates at a much more rapid rate than any other human...which has driven him insane.  He awakens, dispatches a nurse with a power drill to the head, dons his bloodsoaked clothes, and flees into the night to kill again!

That's just the opening.  The murders are graphic, bloody and well done.  Montefiore once again plays a silent madman from a Greek island who exists only to kill.  The film soon becomes an homage/tribute/ripoff of Halloween, and of all the Halloween imitators I have seen, this is the best.  I'd love to have a copy of the film's score by Carlo Maria Cordio, who worked with D'Amato and Lucio Fulci on several occasions, and also on one other Video Nasty, Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox.  The music sounds like a collaboration between John Carpenter and Italian prog-rock quartet Goblin, and would work great for scaring the shit out of trick-or-treaters.

The cast features folks we'll be seeing more of: Annie Belle (who plays babysitter Emily) had at the time just filmed Ruggero Deodato's The House On The Edge Of The Park, which holds the record for Video Nasty With The Most Footage Cut By The BBFC (over 11 minutes!).  Michele Soavi, who went on to become a writer/director of such films as Stagefright, The Church and Dellamorte Dellamore, has an uncredited role as a motorcyclist who is unfortunate enough to make Mikos' acquaintance.  Soavi has similar small roles in Dario Argento's Nasty Tenebre (for which he also directed the second unit), Lucio Fulci's Paura Nella Citta Dei Morti Viventi and Lo Squartatore Di New York, among others (including the Italian sequel to Ridley Scott's Alien, Alien 2: On Earth).

Mark Shannon and Lucia Ramirez, who can be seen in some of D'Amato's early porn efforts, including Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead, appear on a television program watched by Willy.  I'm not sure if the footage comes from one of D'Amato's previous films (most likely) or if it was shot specifically for Rosso Sangue, but knowing that this eight-year-old boy is watching a show starring two porno actors made me laugh.  Also regarding television, characters keep referring to the "big game" between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Rams, most likely Super Bowl XIV, which means the film opens on January 19, 1980, with the bulk of the action taking place on gameday, January 20, 1980.  The fact that footage of the game appears in the film makes me wonder what percentage of the film's budget was given to the NFL to use it.  (I'm sorry to say that the Steelers won that game, 31 to 19.)

The gore here is B. R. U. T. A. L.  Mikos is a mad killing machine, using whatever is handy to dispatch whoever is unlucky enough to be near him.  Fortunately for us in the audience, he is often near power tools and does not hesitate to use them.  Mikos' silence and need to kill for no reason, his menacing of a babysitter and her charges, Father's obvious parallels to Dr. Loomis and how he teams with local law enforcement to stop the monstrous killer make it painfully obvious that much of the plot was stolen from Halloween, but where Carpenter's film is about suspense and jump-scares, Rosso Sangue is all about gore, and the whole thing is so well done that only the most die-hard purist fan of Halloween would take issue with the similarities.  And D'Amato's cinematography is excellent, as always.  Dean Cundey (who shot Halloween) used a more claustrophobic style, focusing more on details, which heightened the suspense.  D'Amato frames his shots more like paintings, which lessens the suspense, but makes things a little more grandiose and overblown, which fits the tone of Rosso Sangue perfectly.

I highly recommend this one.  I enjoyed it immensely and it stands as one of my favourite Nasties so far.  If they were all this good, perhaps I'd be farther along in the list...but I did tell you all at the beginning that this would take a while, and I want to savour this experience like a piece of rare steak.  However, maybe I should hurry it up a little.  You never know when a crazed psychopath might break in, clutching a spill of his own entrails, and try to cut short my trip through these films.  I think I'll keep a large axe handy.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

A Cannibalistic Shell Of A Man...

Video Nasty #13

Anthropophagus The Beast

1980

IT'S NOT FEAR THAT TEARS YOU APART...IT'S HIM!

WATCH IT, IF YOU DARE!

NTSC Running Time: 90:54

Actual Italian title: Antropophagus.

Also known as The Grim Reaper.

Directed by Aristide Massaccesi (as Joe D'Amato)

Written by Joe D'Amato and Luigi Montefiore (as George Eastman)

Produced by Joe D'Amato, George Eastman, Edward L. Montoro and Oscar Santaniello

Starring: Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi (as Vanessa Steiger), Margaret Mazzantini (as Margaret Donnelly), Mark Bodin, Bob Larsen with George Eastman and Zora Kerova

Body Count: 12

Availability: Uncut version on Region 1 2-Disc DVD from Shriek Show

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Cannibalism!

What was cut: Nothing...sort of.

Current UK Status: Antropophagus was submitted to the BBFC in its' American R-rated cut, under the title The Grim Reaper, which was passed uncut and awarded an 18 certificate on January 30, 2002.  This version shears the extreme violence, and some early plot exposition as well.

Availability: Cut version on Region 2 DVD from Hollywood DVD as The Grim Reaper.

Anthropophagus The Beast was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

For anyone wondering about the odd title (which I had lots of fun saying when first learning how to pronounce it) and what it might mean, I refer you to the Science & Nature category question from this Trivial Pursuit Genus Edition card:

And the answer, of course is:

There you have it, Antropophagus means CANNIBAL!

The opening credits play over a happy German couple traversing through a small, bustling village with their little dog.  They reach the beach.  The girl goes for a swim, while her beau relaxes on the beach with some oversized headphones blasting awful music.  Investigating an abandoned dinghy, the girl discovers it to be covered in bloodstains.  Just as she screams, she is dragged under and becomes nothing but a cloud of murky red, Jaws-style.  We are now treated to a POV shot of something advancing on the boyfriend, his girl's blood dripping onto the sand.  The dog hightails it, the boy gets a hatchet to the head.

In true exploitation style, this gritty shock opening has little to nothing to do with the rest of the film.  I love that.

On a cable car high above (a forest?  a canyon?) we meet Carol (Zora Kerova), her pseudo-boyfriend Daniel (Mark Bodin), Arnold (Bob Larsen), and his pregnant (wife?  girlfriend?) Maggie (a young Serena Grandi).  Their talk of an island-hopping vacation catches the attention of Julie (Tisa Farrow, in her final screen appearance [She's not dead, she left acting to become a nurse]), who asks to hitch a ride to her destination, a small island that is never named.  They arrive in Athens (sharp-eyed viewers will notice Joe D'Amato himself as the bearded man who exits the cable car behind the main cast) and meet up with Alan (Saverio Vallone), who takes them to the charter boat and off they go.  Daniel is smitten with Julie, much to Carol's chagrin, while Julie is much more interested in Alan.  To pass the time, Carol tries reading Maggie's fortune with Tarot cards...but sees no future, which disturbs her to the point that she tosses the cards into the Mediterranean.  Upon their arrival at Julie's island, Maggie twists her ankle and stays on the boat with the skipper (an uncredited actor).  The rest explore the island, the one the German couple was enjoying in the prologue, only now there doesn't seem to be a soul around...then Maggie and the skipper go missing and the boat drifts out to sea...

So begins the descent into madness and death as our heroes struggle to solve the mystery of the deserted village, find a way off the island, and survive whatever has befallen this idyllic place...

It is impossible to discuss why Antropophagus is not just a cult favorite but one of the most notorious and reviled of the Video Nasties without dropping some spoilers.  You have been warned.

The island has been set upon by a creature that was once a man, but has become a monster (George Eastman).  A vicious, silent cannibal, the Anthropophagus Beast is an imposing figure whose presence pervades the picture despite his small (ten minutes, if that) amount of screen time.  To my mind, this equates him with Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs: not in the film much, but felt in every frame.

There are two sequences that have guaranteed the films' infamy.  They are both brief and occur in the final reel.  The first is the consumption of a fetus torn from its' mother's womb (while the gullible were convinced the effect was not an effect at all, but done for real, the reality is that Eastman was chowing down on a skinned rabbit purchased at an Italian butcher shop).  The second is the film's final scene: The Beast is stabbed in the gut with a pickaxe...and he proceeds to feast upon his own entrails before collapsing.  Though both sequences are brief, there is no buildup to them and the nonchalance with which they are handled only add to how effective they are.

And there are familiar faces here: Eastman was a D'Amato regular who appeared in Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead (which I mentioned in a previous piece) and he appears as the heavy in D'Amato's other entry on the Nasty list, Absurd, a companion piece to Antropophagus that some call a sequel (because it was made afterwards), some a prequel (D'Amato's opinion).  Tisa Farrow (yes, she is Mia's little sister) stars in another Nasty, Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, known as Zombie Flesh Eaters in the UK.  Zora Kerova also worked with Fulci on his brutal 1982 giallo The New York Ripper, a film so filled with sexuality and violence that it will probably never see an uncut release in the UK.  It took 20 years to earn a BBFC certificate, debuting on DVD in 2002.  [As it is a favorite of mine and was rejected by the BBFC at the height of the Nasty hysteria, we will be covering The New York Ripper in a later column.]

While it was a box-office failure, Antropophagus has become a touchstone for lovers of golden-age Italian horror.  It is long on atmosphere and short on plot.  The violence explodes in quick, untelegraphed bursts.  The music is at times annoying, but unique.  The cinematography is exceptional (D'Amato made his name as a cameraman long before becoming a director).  Unusually for a D'Amato film, there is no sex or nudity, an oddity for a man whose career was mostly spent making pornography.

In the documentary Totally Uncut 2: The Horror Experience, D'Amato relates how, while filming in real Roman catacombs for the fetus eating sequence, the crew rented fake bones to augment the real bones.  When shooting ended for the day, the crew packed up EVERYTHING.  The rental house was horrified, and returned the real bones to D'Amato, who apparently still had them at the time of his death.  His quote: "Maybe someday someone will want to make a pilgrimage to my house!"

I sure do, boss, but not for the bones.  Just because you were cool.

Aristide Massaccesi: December 15, 1936 - January 23, 1999.  Rest in peace.  You are still admired and sorely missed.

I heartily recommend Antropophagus to anyone who wants to understand why Italian horror is so special.  You may not like it, but you won't regret seeing it.  We'll be covering Absurd in a little while.  Until then, stay away from deserted Greek islands.  I will do the same.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Technical Difficulties...Please Stand By...

Well, I posted my writeup of Anthropophagus The Beast yesterday, but due to circumstances beyond our control, it has disappeared and I have to write it again.  For anyone who got to read it, I hope you enjoyed it.  For everyone else, a new and (hopefully) improved article will appear shortly.  Thanks for your patience and understanding.  Now, I'm off to have some lunch and a good cry.  I might need some coffee, too, so I'll make some of that.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Island Hopping With Joe & George.

Good evening.  A quick note/bulletin:


I am currently doing research and chasing leads on confirming Aristide Massaccesi's involvement with Pieces.  Someone somewhere has to have this information, and I will be dogged in my efforts to uncover the trivial truth...and you, of course, will know as soon as I do.  Consider it an incredibly geeky public service.

In a somewhat frustrating development, it has come to my attention that the print of Don't Go Near The Park that I viewed for these articles was incomplete by around six minutes!  It is at this point that I completely withdraw my implied endorsement for the Region 1 DVD released by Dark Sky Films.  While I do still find much to praise about their release of There Was A Little Girl (see Madhouse, Video Nasty #4), they chose to remove footage from the feature due to print damage, which I find an unacceptable practice.  I am attempting to track down a ThrillerVideo VHS release from the 1980s under the title Nightstalker (apparently not a reference to Richard Ramirez).  As above, you will be the first to know upon the event of my success.

In other Joe D'Amato news, this morning I screened Anthropophagus The Beast.  Complete details within the next 48 hours.

But for now, I'm going to play Yahtzee with my wife, the M-Azing N. Credible.  Because I love her.  That's why I married her.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Werewolf Waldemar Wanders Into A Warzone!!!

Video Nasty #12

The Werewolf And The Yeti

1975

TWO BLOODTHIRSTY BEASTS IN DEADLY COMBAT.



HIS LUST FOR BLOOD CANNOT BE SATISFIED...

Original Spanish Title: La Maldicion De La Bestia.  Other alternate titles: Hall Of The Mountain King, Night Of The Howling Beast
PAL Running Time: 81:58
Directed by Miguel Iglesias (as M.I. Bonns)
Written by Jacinto Molina
Produced by Jose Antonio Perez Giner and Modesto Perez Redondo
Starring: Paul Naschy, Mercedes Molina, Silvia Solar, Gil Vidal
Body Count: 26!
Availability: Out of print NTSC VHS from Independent-International Pictures as Night Of The Howling Beast

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Women tied up and tortured, Cannibalism, and Gore murders

What was cut: Nothing.  It was banned.

Current BBFC Status: As it has never been submitted for classification, The Werewolf And The Yeti remains banned in the UK.  Original Video Nasty cassette released by Video Programme Distributors Limited

The Werewolf And The Yeti was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

This one's so rare and out of print that I couldn't even find a trailer.  Enjoy the opening titles...and Paul Naschy's fuzzy wolfman makeup.

A few things one should keep in mind: La Maldicion De La Bestia was made before both American Werewolf In London and Raiders Of The Lost Ark.  In 1975, Rick Baker had not yet revolutionized cinematic lycanthropy, and no one had heard of Indiana Jones.  In 1975, when Spanish audiences wanted adventure and excitement, they turned to Paul Naschy and his recurring werewolf character, Waldemar Daninsky.

The eighth Hombre Lobo film begins in the Himalayas.  Two hikers are attacked and killed by something hairy.  Cut to London, where Waldemar (Naschy) meets with a professor about to lead an expedition to find the Yeti.  He has photographs that show the Yeti not as an Abominable Snowman, but just another hairy apething.  The professor has a daughter, Sylvia (Mercedes Molina billed as Grace Mills), who falls for Waldemar (since Naschy wrote this thing, nearly all the female characters fall for him somehow) and soon they are off to see Nepal.  Waldemar finds a guide who will take them through a secret, dangerous pass that the Sherpas don't want anything to do with.  The fact that he found the guide raving and spitting in an opium den should have tipped him off that all might not go well.  Sure enough, the guide ditches Waldemar at the first sign of trouble, so our intrepid hero finds his way to a cave where there just happen to be two scantily clad babes to collapse in front of.  Their plans for Waldemar seem to be along the line of revive him then rape him, but he's up before they expected and he catches them eating human flesh and worshipping the skeleton of a monster.  So, like any rational person, he kills them...but not before one of them bites him with her vampire fangs...which turns him into a werewolf.

Wags might insert a snide comment here about how witches-slash-vampires don't turn men into werewolves when they bite.  I'm more impressed that all of that above was crammed into the first 20 minutes of the movie.  Diametrically the opposite of Unhinged (see Video Nasty #11), La Maldicion De La Bestia moves so fast that you have trouble catching up to all of the action.

Because this isn't a horror film.  Despite the werewolves, vampires, witches and that elusive yeti (who appears only at the beginning and end), this is an action-adventure film that has lots of blood and violence.  What clinched its' status as a Nasty are the cannibalism scene near the beginning, and the torture scene near the end where women are tied up and have the skin flayed from their backs.  Good times, good times.

Back to something I said above that may have either slipped past or stuck out like a sore thumb: Yes, this is the eighth film in a series featuring the character Waldemar Daninsky...but there's no continuity between any of them, just that Paul Naschy plays the character and he keeps becoming a werewolf for various reasons.  I've only seen this one, so I can't speak for the others, but I'm betting the formula is much the same between all of them: chicks in revealing outfits, monsters fighting each other, cliffhanger after cliffhanger until all is resolved in the final reel.  Naschy himself is a pretty smooth customer: he looks like the burly love-child of Dick Miller and Joaquin Phoenix, and he fights like...like Paul Naschy.  The dude's an original.  Born Jacinto Molina Alvarez in 1934, he wrote over forty films, directed over ten, and acted in at least one hundred, until pancreatic cancer took him from us in 2009.

In all, there were twelve Waldemar Daninsky films, although only eleven survive (Las Noches Del Hombre Lobo, one of the earliest Hombre Lobo pictures, has a fate that is still unknown.  The director was killed in a car crash in 1968, with the film possibly unfinished.  No known print has survived, with Naschy himself unable to locate a copy.), the first in the late 60s, the last, Tomb Of The Werewolf, released direct to video in 2004.  Quite a body of work.

If you choose to venture into La Maldicion De La Bestia, remember what I've told you: the makeup is old-school.  The adventures fast and furious, with little exposition and lots of gore.  And please ignore the British title.  Night Of The Howling Beast or Hall Of The Mountain King are definitely better titles - the werewolf and the yeti meet only briefly.

So stay the hell out of mountain caves with weird women.  Sure, they might want to have sex with you, but then they'll eat you or turn you into a monster, and that's just not worth it.  Heed my warning.  I sure will.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

There's A Man In The House...

Video Nasty #11

Unhinged

1982

VIOLENCE BEYOND REASON, VICTIMS BEYOND HELP...

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS WHEN YOU WAKE UP.

NTSC Running Time: 79:38

Directed & Produced by Don Gronquist

Written by Don Gronquist & Reagan Ramsey

Starring: Laurel Munson, J.E. Penner, Sara Ansley, Virginia Settle

Body Count: 4

Availability: On Region 1 DVD from Indie DVD (2002) and Brentwood Home Video (2005) ... currently also available two inches up from where your eyes are now!

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Because of the lurid cover art.  Seriously.

What was cut: Not a frame.

Current BBFC Status: Unhinged was granted an 18 certificate for cinema release on May 4, 1983.  A video certificate of 18 was awarded on June 11, 2004.

Availability: Region 2 DVD from Platinum Media Corp.

Unhinged was seized, but escaped prosecution.

 

Have you watched the video up there yet?  Noticed that it's not a trailer?  Yep, that's the entire film posted up there.  You're welcome.  Enjoy.  It's okay, I'll wait.

Actually, I'm not going to assume that you've watched the film.  While having the entire film at the top of the page would give some justification for doing so, I will not give away any spoilers in the text.  It's rude to do so (still looking at you, Jim Harper) and having to write around the film's secrets provides a fun challenge and gives me a slight amount more class than someone who will just throw down with the ending.

You see, Unhinged has an incredible, intense ending.  It's just too bad that the first 68 minutes don't match the last 11.

Three Oregon girls head for a big jazz festival on a stormy weekend.  The get into a wreck and wake up in a creepy old manor house.  Terry (Laurel Munson) and Nancy (Sara Ansley) are basically okay, their friend Gloria (Barbara Lusch) is worse off and we don't see her much.  Occupying the mansion are Mrs. Penrose (Virginia Settle) and her daughter/servant Marion (J.E. Penner, the J is for Janet).  They're isolated and far from any roads.  Mrs. Penrose hates men with a psychotic fervor and constantly accuses Marion of having men in the house.  It isn't long before Terry and Nancy flip a coin to see who has to hoof it through the woods to town to call their parents...but then the loser doesn't come back...

Shot entirely in the Portland, Oregon area (prominently using Pittock Mansion, a historic landmark owned by the city of Portland) with local cast and crew, Unhinged is well done in several respects and awful in others.  I very much enjoyed the editing, which may include the largest number of smash cuts to black screens than any other movie I've ever seen.  The camerawork is good, though sometimes underlit, which is common for movies like this when the lighting budget is only slightly more than bus fare.  The more experienced cast members (Settle, Penner and John Morrison as handyman Norman Barnes) did a wonderful job, but the three younger girls seem to have been chosen based on their willingness to do shower scenes (there are two), rather than any acting ability.  Indeed, Munson and Ansley have no other screen credits.  Penner, the most talented member of the cast, is still working, I'm happy to see, most recently on the television show Leverage (interestingly, her first film was Unhinged and the second, a TV movie called The Haunting Of Sarah Hardy, also used Pittock Mansion as a location).

In the world of exploitation horror, Unhinged is a bit of a red-headed stepchild: The film is long on atmosphere and short on shock.  The first kill happens halfway through the picture and the remainder of the violence is saved for the final 11 minutes.  The rest is exposition, with one pretty good scare to liven it up.  This is a classic example of distributors hyping a modest horror effort into a bloodbath of debauchery, promising things that the picture cannot deliver...but all is not lost.  As I said above, the climax is incredible, a riveting end to a movie that is at times boring.  If the intensity and ominous feeling of doom given by the final scene had been matched by the rest of the picture, Unhinged would be a minor classic.  Alas, it was not to be...but it's enough, because thanks to the moral watchdogs of unregulated UK videotapes, Unhinged is now immortal, and it's a damn good thing, because it deserves to be seen, no matter the shortcomings. 

Besides, after catching Elvira hosting a showing of Teenagers From Outer Space late last night, it's easy to see that even the smallest of films can find their true audience.  And as someone who had seen it before and been underwhelmed the first time (much like Death Trap, see Video Nasty #9), I'm happy to say that I am definitely a fan of Unhinged, and if you take the time to watch it on its' own terms, maybe you will be, too.  I hope so.  That's why I write this thing, in the hopes that others will find their own favorites in the detritus most sweep under the rug.  Because that's where I've found so many jewels.  And always check the shed.  It might not contain what they've told you it does.  Best to make sure.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Two Months Bender.

Hey!  How have you been?

I'm back!

Not that I went anywhere.  In the time since I've last posted, my Nasties collection has grown to 27, and there's been some changes around here.

The biggest of those changes, however, occurred before my hiatus, about two weeks before Don't Go Near The Park.  Check it out:

That's Isabella.  Photo by the lovely (and prize-winning) N. Credible.  The glared-out case to Izzy's right is The Evil Dead, on glorious widescreen VHS.  And if you're counting, you may notice there's only 26.  The Driller Killer arrived the next day.  And you may notice a new prize: Romano Scavolini's Nightmare (aka Nightmares In A Damaged Brain) in an uncut bigbox.

Oh, yeah.  Not pictured: Izzy's favorite movie.  What is it?  Why, Pieces, of course.

Unhinged is up next.  I mean real next, like in 30 seconds, so stay glued to this channel.  You wouldn't want to miss it.  And if you've got any questions, I'm always here, ready to help.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Splatter Giallo...Hecho En Espana!

YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO TEXAS FOR A CHAINSAW MASSACRE!

Pieces

1982



IT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK IT IS!

Two nights ago, I finally experienced a film that I should have seen a long time ago: Juan Piquer Simon's Mil Gritos Tiene la Noche, better known as Pieces.  Co-written by producer Dick Randall and John Shadow (which may or may not be yet another alias for Aristide Massaccesi, more later on), Pieces is a magnum opus of exploitation that the trailer above only hints at.

In 1942 Boston, a boy is chastised by his mother for doing a jigsaw puzzle of a naked woman.  She sends him from the room to fetch a sack in which to dispose of the offending pastime.  He instead returns with a large axe and proceeds to do away with her.  He is busy cutting her up with a handsaw when the police arrive, drawn by a neighbour who heard the mother's death throes.  They find the boy whimpering in a closet, babbling about the large man who broke in and they escort him from the house.

Forty years later, the man the boy has grown into begins once again to build the nudie puzzle...and complement it with a puzzle of his own: The pieces of numerous co-eds, gained through chainsaw dismemberment.  The cops are called in to solve the case...and away we go.

What follows is a crass piece of gratuitous nudity and gore that is balletic in its' prurient brilliance.  The black-gloved, trenchcoated killer stalks the campus, miraculously invisible in all his movements, carving up half-undressed girls in dark corners (and broad daylight!) with a bright yellow chainsaw that he even manages to sneak into an elevator with an unsuspecting victim.

Pieces is exploitation heaven.  Blood flows copiously, breasts and a penis are proudly displayed and not one frame tries to be anything other than gratuitous.  That is the film's purpose: lowbrow entertainment elevated to something more simply because how true to its' intention Pieces is.  Christopher George chows down on a cigar in every frame.  His real-life wife, Lynda Day, is the tennis pro/cop who goes undercover to catch the madman.  Ian Sera plays the cocky college student that George enlists to help with the case, against the wishes of his partner (played by Frank Brana).

Although often classified as a slasher film, Pieces is more readily identifiable as a giallo.

Slasher films are often noted for their simple plotlines, masked killers, and use of the character commonly known as the Final Girl.  The usual characteristics of the Final Girl are her "virginal" nature (she rarely has a nude scene, has sex or partake in drugs or alcohol), her screen time occupies the bulk of the picture, and she is personally responsible for dispatching (or almost dispatching) the killer in the final reel.  Friday The 13th, Halloween, Scream, et. al. are responsible for contributing to the definitions of a slasher film.

As discussed in an earlier column, the giallo has its' origins in Italy, features a black-gloved killer whose identity is most often obscured by keeping identifying characteristics off-camera, elaborate and gory murder sequences involving shiny cutting instruments, off-kilter logic, and a distinctly European presentation of sex and nudity.  Great examples are Profondo Rosso and Lo Squartatore di New York, along with our two giallo Nasties, Tenebre and Blood Bath.

In Pieces, most of the screen time is given to the setpieces: the killer stalking, a topless girl either fleeing or ignorant of what is coming up behind her...and deep crimson liquid flying in all directions when the two collide, a sure sign that we are in giallo territory.  There is no Final Girl.  While Lynda Day's character is a definite candidate, she doesn't appear for the first time until halfway through the picture.  The character who comes up being the focus isn't Christopher George's cop, either.  It's Ian Sera's portrayal of ladies man Kendall that comes closest to the role of Final Girl, and his carousing with numerous females (including displaying his penis for the audience in one scene) negates his being Final Girl material.  Finally, (SPOILER ALERT) neither Day nor Sera is the killer's dispatcher.

Slasher film scholars (I'm looking at you, Jim Harper) take note: Mil Gritos Tiene la Noche is a prime example of giallo, made more impressive due to its' being hecho en Espana.

Now here's the thing that's been driving me bonkers: Authorship of the treatment that director Juan Piquer Simon turned into the screenplay.  Writing credits are given for producer Dick Randall and one "John Shadow".  Numerous sources report that John Shadow is one of the many aliases used by Aristide Massaccesi, best known as Joe D'Amato, director of two Nasties and one of the legends of Eurosleaze filmmaking.  What complicates things is the existence of a John W. Shadow, writer/director of Microscopic Liquid Subway To Oblivion.  This John W. Shadow was married to one-time Miss Teen Sweden Ewa Aulin, star of Microscopic Liquid Subway, from 1968 to 1972.  In 1973, Ms. Aulin starred in La Morte Ha Sorriso All'Assassino, aka Death Smiles On A Murderer, directed by Aristide Massaccesi, the only film Joe D'Amato ever signed with his real name.  I have never heard of D'Amato being married at any point in his too-brief life.  The relationship between Shadow and D'Amato is too close (due to the linkage of Ms. Aulin) for one to make a definitive call on authorship without ironclad evidence from someone involved in the production.  The Pieces DVD (an amazing 2-disc set from Grindhouse Releasing) contains an interview with Juan Piquer Simon where the director is said to confirm D'Amato's involvement...except I watched that 55-minute interview twice and never heard his name mentioned.  Simon states that he was given a 15-page treatment that he turned into a screenplay.  He does not state who wrote the treatment and claims sole credit for the shooting script.  SO, until I find some information stating conclusively that D'Amato was involved (which I hope to find - as a fan of the man I'd love to be able to include this in his filmography) the debate will rage on.

I LOVED this movie and I give it a hearty recommendation to you.  Now I need to figure out which Nasty is next.  I just got a copy of Delirium in the mail, so the list of hard-to-find Nasties just got a little shorter.  I'll be back with you soon.  Just don't get on an elevator with anyone who keeps their hands behind their back.  They may be holding a chainsaw.  I'll heed that advice.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

The Lay Of The Land (Of The Dead)...Part 2!

At the beginning of this endeavour, I presented a list of the rarer, harder-to-find titles that I knew would present a problem in acquisition.  I am pleased to say that this list is now much shorter.  My personal collection of Nasties has grown to include twenty-one films, nearly a third of the list.  But there remain nineteen titles that are either:

A) Unavailable for rental.
B) Out of print and rare.
and in at least one case
C) Never released uncut in the United States.

And there are whispers.  Whispers of a film intended for the list that fell through the DPP's fingers because of the thing that plagued low-budget exploitation from its' humble beginnings: alternate titles.  I'll get back to this in a minute.

Here are the nineteen films that have thus far eluded me.  Some are quite easy to obtain.  Why don't I list those first:

Blood Rites aka The Ghastly Ones
Love Camp 7
and Night Of The Bloody Apes are on DVD from Something Weird video and are still in print.
The Driller Killer is available on DVD from several companies, because the film lies in the public domain.
Forest Of Fear, aka Bloodeaters is on DVD from Televista (as Toxic Zombies) and it isn't too tough to track down.
Island Of Death is on DVD from Image and, while I believe it is now out of print, it isn't too hard to find, although (like Love Camp 7) the price is inexplicably higher than other similar films.
Pranks aka The Dorm The Dripped Blood is also available on DVD from Jef Films and not too hard to locate.
SS Experiment Camp is available on DVD from Shriek Show (as SS Experiment Love Camp).
The Witch Who Came From The Sea is on DVD from Subversive Cinema and again, is relatively easy to track down.

These nine films are cake.  Relatively low pricetags, copies in abundance.  I'm not worried about locating these.  (Although having written that, at least one of them will almost assuredly elude me.)

Then there are the out-of-print, VHS-if-you're-lucky films.  Most of these forgotten relics haven't received a DVD release and may never.  If I can track these down, I'll feel like I've won something:

Delirium aka Psycho Puppet.  Out of print, VHS only, Paragon Video.
Human Experiments.  Out of print, VHS only, VidAmerica.
Night Of The Demon.  Out of print, DVD and VHS, Miracle Pictures.
Nightmare Maker aka Night Warning.  Out of print, VHS only, Thorn/EMI/HBO Video.
Nightmares In A Damaged Brain aka Nightmare aka Blood Splash.  Out of print, VHS only, Continental Video (as Nightmare).  (Code Red is working on releasing an uncut DVD, but so far it has not appeared.)
Possession.  Out of print, DVD and VHS, Anchor Bay.
The Slayer.  Out of print, VHS only, Marquis Video.  (The double-feature cassette that pairs The Slayer with Scalps is edited to make both films fit.  The Marquis release is the whole film and it is extremely rare.)
Terror Eyes aka Night School.  Out of print, VHS only, Warner/Key Video.

These eight are diamonds buried in coal, and it may take some work to bring them home.  One more and we're all caught up with Nasties:

Expose`.  Released in the US as The House On Straw Hill in an edited version, the only homegrown British Nasty is tough to track down.  Televista is said to have released a Region 1 DVD, but it has never materialized.  As far as I know, the ONLY uncut release is the original VHS Nasty released by Intervision in the UK in 1979.  My goal: Track down that tape, get it transferred to NTSC, Enjoy.

Expose` is the Holy Grail of Video Nasties.  So that's eighteen and that completes the list.  Every other title is available for rental or already in my personal collection.  So what is the nineteenth film?  This is where the rumors and confusion, the whispers of the ether, the film geek's paranoia comes into play.

It all begins in the 1970s.  Made in 1973, a low-budget pseudo-snuff film titled The Last House On Dead End Street hit grindhouse theatres four year later.  The credits were packed with pseudonyms, the origins of the film questionable.  No one seemed to know who had made the film and whether or not the deaths it depicted were real or staged.  Legend has it that the original running time was three hours...and that this long cut, titled The Cuckoo Clocks Of Hell, is still housed in a New York film lab waiting to be paid for.  Its other alternate title: The Fun House, incredibly close to the 1981 Tobe Hooper film The Funhouse, which was seized but not successfully prosecuted.

So this is the rumor: The Last House On Dead End Street was intended to be on the Nasties list but was confused with The Funhouse and escaped being targeted.  I have no substantial evidence to back this up (that's what makes it a rumor, derp), but the idea is certainly attractive.  Dead End (shortening it to Last House would cause too much confusion with the Craven/Cunningham classic that did indeed make the list) would fit nicely on the list: a low-budget American horror film trading on shock value and pseudo-snuff promotion techniques that was controversial in its' own right.  Whether or not the rumor is true, this is a film I must get my hands on.  There were at least four VHS releases (some censored, some not), but the definitive version is the out of print Barrel Entertainment 2-Disc DVD set released in 2002.  As expected, this is a pricey item, but I am so intrigued I will probably end up shelling out when I finally get some folding money.

So there you have it: The 19 Movies that plague my thoughts.  It's like an itch that costs money to scratch, but is slightly more legal than crack and smack.

So scour your local video store, flea market and (dare I say it) antiques mall.  I sure will.  One never knows where they might find a lost treasure, so my eyes will always be peeled.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.