Merchant of Death (1997) - Yossi Wein.

A young boy (Michael Paré), witnesses the slaughter of his family, and during adulthood, he recalls disturbing details about the tragedy, and ruthlessly seeks long overdue justice. The spectacularly gonzo shoot out at the beginning of the film is definitely an attention grabber, and happily, Yossi Wein's explosive Merchant of Death is a generous provider of boy's own, Berretta-blasting mayhem, along with some truly epic, monster-sized pyrotechnics! Formulaic Text and plot are serviceable for a 90s DTV actioner, what makes Merchant of Death memorable is charismatic lead Paré, and its tantalizing generosity of thrillingly big bangs for your B-action buck! Not for the first time, handsome head-knocker Michael Paré proves himself to be a gutsy gunslinger, a distractingly gorgeous, absolutely credible action star who always commands the viewer's attention.

 Night Fangs (2005) – Ricardo Islas.

I saw low-budget erotic vampire shocker Night Fangs solely because the main character was called Professor Naschy, which is the best reason in the world to watch this lurid manner of cheapnis suck n' fuck splatter, dude! Variable acting skills, modest Sapphic T & A, a smattering of grisly blood splattering, and amusingly pulp dialogue, if y'all needed a recharge of your B-movie blood Bathory, Night Fangs might be just what Dr. Van Helsing ordered! My unexpectedly positive take on this is largely based upon my perverse obsession with all things Countess Bathory. I'd be more than happy adding this to my horror/exploitation collection, and if the film-makers had filed off ten minutes from the final edit, these Night Fangs would have proved sharper, with much more bite!

 Schwarze Messe Des Gehirns aka Black Mass of The Brain. (2016) – Cosmotropia de Xam.

'Everywhere is Babylon'

I enjoyed this divinely demoniacal serotonic deluge with a nice cup of nut-brown tea and some good biscuits, others, perhaps, may care to imbibe something stronger! It is absolutely fair to claim that the film makers are Jean Rollin fans, and that, as far as I'm concerned, makes them jolly good eggs! I found Black Mass of The Brain to be an oblique, inventive, oneiric, exotic, and ruthlessly strobe-tastic experience, eerily heightened by a crepuscular electronic score. Some may balk at the stridently artsy-fartsy mise-en-scene, but I greatly appreciated the more vividly delirious sequences. To the film-makers enormous credit, Black Mass of The Brain remains hauntingly strange throughout, an unconventionally erotogenic decent into a dizzying kaleidoscope of femme phantasmagoria. I think I would like this even more if it actually were about nothing at all, an arbitrarily bleak, visually arresting, disorientating exploration of utter negation, wherein absence, death, void, and prohibited rites are deeply explored, simply for the heady joy of exploration/experimentation. While it's always hard to state with any degree of certainty, fans of Kenneth Anger, Nick Zedd, Nathan Schiff, Lydia Lunch, and Boyd Rice might get a kick out of Cosmotropia de Xam's darkly descended, feel bad opus Black Mass of The Brain. In closing, the Beast in The Cellar WILL eat you brain, just thought I'd give y'all a heads up, doing my duty as a concerned citizen.

 The Black Room (1982) Elly Kenner/Norman Thaddeus Vane.

A handsome, IMMEDIATELY strange couple of bourgeois degenerates, rent out a luxurious room in their isolated abode to those seeking a secret love-nest, only to evilly appropriate their lusty tenants for malign blood rites, and salacious peek-a-boo action! The lively plenitude of T&A really keeps this 80s weirdie afloat, and the soapy dialogue drags it back down, happily, the audacious blood-letting pulls it back to the surface again! Cult status is afforded all too blithely these days, The Black Room, while mostly amusing, and engagingly frisky at times is much like the loony landlords macabre drinking habits, as Thaddeus Vane's inhospitable The Black Room remains an acquired taste. One especially neat visual gambit is the light box softly illuminating the salty shenanigans within the sultrily silk-draped stag room, hats off whoever came up with that, since it really is strikingly effective! While I greatly prefer Vane's magnificent 'Horror Show aka 'Frightmare', The Black Room is absolutely worth a watch to fans of outré, post-Manson/Acid-dazed splatter.

 Electra (1996) – Julian Grant.

'Sex is the key!!!!! all we have to do s find the right keyhole!!!!!'

Regardless of content, Electra had me magnetically at Shannon Tweed, it was only later I realised that this hoped to be an erotically sci-fried comedy/actioner with amusingly camp affectations. Not especially witty, but, in truth, that really wasn't why I was watching it! Hey!!! If y'all want a good sci-fi comedy, might I humbly suggest Galaxy Quest, or Star Crash. While this garish mode of voyeuristic trash remains strongly in my wheelhouse, Julian Grant's serially salacious Sci-smut Electra may prove too puerile for any with more refined cinephile sensibilities. B-movie bonus points are deservedly awarded for the beautiful botties, pop corny dialogue, especially righteous is the choice usage of a beautifully disparaging 'You, Dolt!' Pretty boy Billy (Joe Tabbanella) conducting himself like The Six Million Dollar Man, and plentiful bouts of blissful Kung Foolery!!!! Boffo climax is Troma 101, and the saucily sinister S&M Mom Tweed provides some overwhelmingly tasty eye candy that should come with a government health warning for diabetics!

 Night Vision (1988) – Michael Krueger.

Naive, would-be scrivener (Stacy Carson) anxiously moves to the big bad city, meets (un-cutely)a shady diminutive skell(Tony Carpenter), falls for a cynical, yet ultimately humane video vixen (Shirley Ross), and is murderously possessed by the increasingly malign night emissions of a purloined satanic videotape! A lifetime of wallowing in a mire of B-movie incongruity has given me an almost preternatural ability to suspend disbelief, which proved immensely useful with Michael Krueger's loopy Lou Night Vision. While the pacing often feels sluggish, the script and performances are unexpectedly engaging in this goofily entertaining, yet undeniably hokey indie shocker. Granted, it takes a wee while to get going, the body splattering is largely off-camera, and despite its rather tame Mise-en-scène, Night Vision's frequently bizarre digressions proved mostly interesting. I'm hoping that the future looks brighter for Krueger's unfairly neglected tale of the devil's evilly tormenting terror tape, as Night Vision is absolutely deserving of rediscovery, perhaps even being given a limited Ed. (haunted) Big Box VHS re-release?