Game Show Models (1977) – David Neil Gottlieb.

Game Show Models is humdrum, hippiefied 70s ephemera, featuring sporadic nudity, moderate in-out and delusions of drama. To be fair, the always welcome presence of the charismatic B-Movie icon Dick Miller may attract more forgiving schlock seekers. I assume Game Show Models was intended to be a satire on the mercenary, kill 'em all mendacity of Hollywood's backroom power brokers, but the text is far too soft, and the appropriately named Stuart Goober proved to be a somewhat flaccid protagonist. I mostly zoned out of Goober's travails at the Slick Dick PR agency, populated with vapid, L.A schemers, but Gottlieb's harmless little film provides a few sympathetic snapshots of the infamous city of angels, and Goober's uncommonly exquisite paramour Cici (Diane Sommerfield) is absolutely delicious! 

 Zombie Women of Satan (2009) - Warren Speed/Steve O'Brien.

'Daddy's doing experiments, and they've all gone mad!!!!'

A colourful troupe of ragamuffin burlesque entertainers participate in a popular influencer's channel Rawe TV, and during the interview a horde of beauteous women, dosed on some alien drug turn monstrously feral and run bloodily amok! It isn't the first time I have had my cherished theorem proved correct, a belief that any low budget Zombie flick becomes vastly more compelling when said zombies are crazed, deliciously nubile, lingerie-clad, top-popping hotties. My sole legitimate beef with this inventively gory, absurdly brilliant British Zom-com is that I only wish that I had come up with Pervo, the inspirationally priapic, almost perpetually masturbating clown! While cinema is most certainly NOT a meritocracy, as if it were, the gruesomely psychotronic buzz-bomb Zombie Women of Satan would be infinitely more popular than the episodic Shaun of The Dead. Lewd, nude, and spectacularly skewed, Zombie Women of Satan is Apex terror trash, a titillating admixture of unrepentant smuttiness, ribald humour, and righteous Gore-mongery!

Misericordia. (2024) - Alain Guiradarie.

This intriguingly bizarre French film seems to exist solely in a blackly funny dream-world all of its very own! While the main, extraordinarily strange protagonist's downward spiral has precedents in Noir cinema, everything else is deliciously bent.

 American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993) – Boaz Davidson.

Doomily set in one of the many grimily interchangeable dystopian futures that formed the desperate backdrop of a great many 90s DTV Sci-fighters, starring Michael Sopkiw, JCVD, Billy Blanks, Olivier Gruner, or, in this instance, Joe Lara! The plot borrows heavily from Euro-cult classic 2019: After The Fall of New York, but the director fucks shit up with such a noisome frequency, it seems churlish to mention it, but since I remain a notorious churl, I did! Consummate action film-maker Boaz Davidson has created many top notch actioners, and his explosive American Cyborg remains a kinetic, bullet-blasted, post apocalyptic gem.

Aesthetically, the film looks good, dynamic production design, Joe Lara is a hunk, and his fetus-bearing companion Mary (Nicole Hansen), is one juicy-lipped pop tart! In fact, they are all legitimately boffable, even the relentless killer replicant (John Ryan) has an appealingly high-toned, homoerotic Mad Max/Studio 54 vibe! There are good and bad formula actioners, just like there are good and bad Wieners, the secret is largely in the special sauce, and American Cyborg is a tasty foot-long with the whole enchilada! I have always found Joe Lara to have an engaging screen presence, and he brings a distinctly spaghetti western/Chippendales quality to his gruffly heroic Austin.

 Zombie Dearest (2009) – David Kempker.

Struggling comedy writer Gustav (David Kempker), and his frustrated, long-suffering girlfriend (Shauna Black)attempt a fresh start by renovating a fixer-upper in her isolated, rural home town, only to disturbingly discover they not only have rats, there's a zombie blocking the septic tank!!! Affable Canadian Zom-com has likeable performances, quality writing, an unusually sympathetic zombie (David Sparrow), and some bona fide belly laffs! Zombie Dearest kinda feels like one of those boozy, pre-dawn ideas that proves you should always jot 'em down, as you never know, it just might produce an above average, hugely tittersome indie horror comedy. It's a fun, engaging, richly ironical midnight movie treat, and the blackly funny Monkey's Paw business is smartly integrated.

 Frozen in Fear (2001) – Robin. P. Murray.

In this goose-bumpy thriller, slinky metropolitan art bunny Catherine Oxenberg has the choice of boinking one of the three males, burly Rod Steiger, angsty Scott Plank, or will she succumb to enigmatic mute Eric Roberts, who proves ever so clever with his hands? But, is she blithely knocking off the shadowy subzero serial killer stalking this ghostly deserted ex-logging backwater? A beautiful location, a gorgeous protagonist (Oxenberg), a bellicose patriarch (Steiger), and a silent folk artist (Roberts) provide the increasingly volatile ingredients to Robin. P. Murray's erotically-singed murder mystery. Not for the first time, the moral is to be careful who you choose to boink, as you might just end up as a perma-frosted human popsicle! This glacial nutjob is icing young women in creepy Montana backwater Dark Hollow, and who will be the next victim of this maniacal misfit's frost-bitten modus operandi? Frozen in Fear abounds nosily with lurid Hitchcockian power tropes, and pseudo-slasher jackanapes, but that is precisely why it is such a camply enjoyable experience. Somewhat ironically, Oxenberg and Roberts make for a palpably hot couple in this altogether daft, but irresistibly contrived noughties serial chiller!

 A Ritmo De Jess aka The Rhythm of Jess (2013) – Naxo Fiol.

This titillating, shot from-the-hips documentary utilizes an engagingly voyeuristic approach, intimately observing an ailing, yet mentally sharp Jess Franco shooting/improvising his low budget, smut-slathered oddity 'Al Pereira vs the Alligator Ladies'. As a long-time Franco fan, A Ritmo De Jess remains a bona fide cinematic treat, while undeniably frail, having such unfettered access to the psychotronic maestro's film-making process proved fascinating, and Iberian, Euro-cult icon Antonio Mayans gentlemanly presence provides an additional boon. Franco's mental faculties are sharp; asking the portly cameraman about the camera, he dully replies 'it's a Sony!', Jess huffily retorting that he didn't want to know the brand, which was plainly obvious!

A not infrequently cantankerous Jess mentions the less formal shooting style of Cassavetes to his cameraman, who isn't aware of him?!? No diss intended, as he appears to be a Stalwart fellow, but I can imagine Mr. Franco finding it a tad alienating working with such an ill-informed DP. One of the more winning aspects of A Ritmo De Jess is the potently erotic vision of the exquisite Irene Verdu, her wickedly playful nature, picante sultriness, and uninhibited nudity making her one especially indelible Alligator lady! Jess's crew was extraordinarily bare-boned, with producer/actor Mayans acting as gaffer, and factotum, plus, with no visible sound recordist, I must assume, all live sound was captured by the camera's rudimentary mike? Avid Francophiles, and B-freaks alike are sure to appreciate Franco's rhythm method!