Black Night aka Nuit Noire (2005) Olivier Smolders.

Olivier Smolders eerily presents a crepuscular oddity, largely set inside a natural history museum, wherein entomologist Oscar (Fabrice Rodriguez) begins to experience increasingly distressing events, some of which, may, or may not be febrile figments of his past, real, or imagined. As a card-carrying nut-cake, I appreciate murky mind-benders probing the near-unfathomable machinations of the human mind, with Oscar providing a memorably insular protagonist. Freudian horror is not that niche, back to cinema's infancy, meliere, Evgeni Bauer, and Lang, the sinister interstices of the subconscious has long proven to be a veritable wellspring of inspiration! A darkly erotic, visually compelling work of non-linear interior fiction, oneiric, sensual, and often challenging, Nuit Noire remains an off-beat treasure trove for fans of surrealistic art-house wyrd.

The mutability of the narrative proved intriguing, since one is never absolutely sure of the veracity of Olivier's uniquely creepy environment. Nuit Noire's mournful soundtrack, sublime production design, and exquisite photography are some of the more fascinating aspects of Smolders elegiac mood piece. Not unlike The Quay Brothers, or Svankmajer, the doomy dioramas created herein are quite often utterly alien, but it is the film's bravura facility for beautifully portraying disturbingly unfamiliar vistas that is so beguiling. I found Nuit Noire to be an aesthetic triumph, Smolders creates an immersive, wholly iconoclastic world, often strange and malevolent; it is nonetheless a place all of us recognise from our dreams. Final thoughts, this is a deliciously outre Belgian confection, and I couldn't help but detecting blackened notes of Kafka, J.G Ballard and William Burroughs.

 Black Venus (1983) – Claude Mulot.

'More wine, and forget the exotic bird!!!'

A struggling artist (Jose Ceinos) becomes justifiably beguiled by stunning Martinique muse (Josephine Jacqueline Jones) and this erotic obsession boils over lustily into luscious period, soft-core shenanigans by a true master of the form Claude Mulot. No one watches/collects prodigiously fleshly works by Franco, Jaeckin, Benazeraf, or Alain Hardy for their dramatic nuance, or labyrinthine plotting, their lasting, altogether earthy appeal is undeniably due to the exotic soundtracks, dazzling European vistas, frequent Sexual audacity, and lion's share of delectable Euro-starlets, all gorgeously replete in their mesmerising birthday suits! Any erotic drama inordinately blessed with Florence Guerin, Karin Shubert, Lone Fleming, and Helga Line is going to remain MORE than compelling, regardless of any narrative shortfalls! The sets, production design, period schmutter are above average, and the classical score certainly adds a veneer of class to Mulot's allegedly Balzacian bonk-fest!

While Black Venus clearly preaches to the perverted, any who actively appreciate the majesty of the female form will find little fault with Mulot's appetisingly voluptuous content. Not only palpably erotic, the subtext of historic imperialist abuses is far from indistinct. The one innate value of soft-core exploitation, over its more aggressive, gynecologically-inclined iteration are the opportunities to provide moments of genuine sensuality, making room in the viewer's mind for his, or her imagination to take flight! In conclusion, Black Venus is a lovely vintage adult feature, demonstratively created in order to titillate audiences, and the exquisite cast guarantees that it should do that almost indefinitely! I cannot be absolutely certain, but I believe Brigitte Lahaie appears briefly in the Bordello scene.

 Against the Law (1997) – Jim Wynorski.

'Hollywood Hall of Shane.'

Prolific B-Impresario Wynorski ably presents a hard-boiled L.A crime actioner about vainglorious, Gun-happy psycho Rex (Richard Grieco), tabloid TV reporter (Nancy Allen), and picture-perfect burn-out, cigarette suckin' cop (Nick Mancuso)hustle & bustle their way to a satisfyingly bullet-blasted showdown in Against The Law. Richard Grieco is the type of actor who always reminds me how much better Mickey Rourke was at doing what Grieco isn't. That said, Nancy Allen and Nick Mancuso were always top dollar, never less than watchable, not infrequently providing much-needed heft to the Stock B-Crime scenarios, and overtly recycled dialogue. As an avid fan of 90s DTV action, I'm not quite sure how I missed this wee gem! You have meat 'n Potatoes actioners, and y'all got Coffee & Doughnuts to-go cop noir, and Against The Law is manifestly the latter, with plentiful sugary sprinkles on top! While I felt Grieco too vanilla to convincingly pull it off, Wynorski's snazzy crime thriller is pretty lively, and concludes excitingly in an enjoyably slam bang ironical show down. Directors Siegal, Carpenter, and Lustig are playfully name-checked, fruit stalls and cars get slow-mo fragged, and Mancuso's liver gets royally pounded by a river of Chivas in Against The Law's winningly gun-smoked B-movie Bonanza of dead-eyed, DTV cop schlock-a-rama! Final thought: It's entirely fanciful on my part, but I'd like to believe that Mancuso was channeling Chow Yun Fat at the beach shoot out!!!!

 Branded Female Convicts (1984) – Shigeru Poi.

In the wake of a prison fire, one of the prisoners on temporary release Ochiyo (Tomoko Ogawa) made use of this by revenging herself upon those who falsely accused her, thereby reclaiming the honour of her family name. W.I.P exploitation and revenge go together smoother than Vodka & Tonic, and Branded Female Convicts offers Asian genre fans something with no less of a kick! Soft core nookie, violence, nudity, government corruption, and appealing period costumes, if you've seen more than one Japanese W.I.P flick, 0ne is aware of the mostly strict adherence to systematised tropes. Not the worst, and not the best example of battling babes behind bars, it is nicely shot, competently made, and Ochiyo is hugely sympathetic protagonist. Her punishment is somewhat Draconian, to e dragged about the village before being crucified, one would have to be born with a heart of stone not to wish an alternative outcome for the lovely, absolutely blameless Ochiyo. One aspect that remains relatively consistent about Japanese exploitation, be they produced for the cinema, or small screen, the performances are always exemplary, frequently featuring memorable scores, and Shigeru Poi's thrilling Branded Female Convicts is no exception.

 'Blood Sabbath' (1972) – Brianna Murphy.

'The wicked Queen witch sure has Alotta on Toppa!'

This frothy far-out phantasmagoria of a photogenic female coven darkly beguiling a Hippie Vietnam veteran is a satisfyingly saucy example of kooky witchsploitation. The 70s produced a number of libidinous, Top-Poppingly psychedelicized exploitation gems, with Blood Sabbath's heady admixture of buxom bombshell Dyanne Thorne, hippiefied Hocus Pocus, and deliriously drug-induced deviltry remaining one of the raunchier relics from the Drive-In era. If a group of down-tuned working-class Brummies had seen this poster, rather than Bava's masterpiece, would the band moniker of Blood Sabbath have proved a hindrance to their meteoric rise? Dyanne Thorne fleshly flouncing about in the forest, wearing little more than patchouli oil stank is a good look for any film, and what Blood Sabbath lacks in gore is carnally compensated by bodaciously Blood Sabbathing babes, a phat Baphomet-boogie score, and a plenitude of Al Fresco, juicily jugs-out jackanapes!

If I had a dime for every B-Flick that began with a freedom-seeking, denim-clad goof sporting an acoustic guitar, I still wouldn't have enough scratch to buy a pub pint at today's prices! In truth, if it wasn't for the bouncy, hep-cat soundtrack, and prodigious nudity, Blood Sabbath's mode of stoner-schlock witch/whimsy would be little more than a slug-paced nullity. When Drippy Dave says to the nubile water nymph Yyalla (Susan Diamante) 'He looked EVERYWHERE for her!', it was manifestly untrue, so, for me at least, he was wholly deserving of evil sultry Sorceress Alotta's (Dyanne Thorne) super-sexified machinations! Those with a penchant for dazzling displays of voluminous lady gardens, synchronized Satanic saturnalia, and shouty dipso padre's will surely dig on Blood Sabbath. In conclusion, Dyanne Thorne's bewitching curves are certainly no small parts of Blood Sabbath's florid charms!

 Grida Dalla Palude aka Screams From The Swamp. (2022) – Lorenzo Lepori.

Italian indie horror director Lorenzo Lepori graphically presents an indie shocker about a grieving widow Angela (Simona Vanneli), whose desperate attempts to find the truth over the suggested medical malpractice that caused the deaths of her husband and son leads her into a blackened vortex of deranged medical practitioners, perverse thrill-killings, and mind-warping occulted retribution. The visceral opening gambit of a nude & feathered woman, stalked and brutally slain by shotgun skells exults in a thrillingly retrograde/Video nasty scalping, which is entirely apropos, considering Lepori's film is distributed by controversial splatter DVD/VHS trailblazers VIPCO!!!! I've had a yen for gruesome Italian horror since the 80s, and it's certainly edifying to see a young film-maker successfully keeping the lurid legacy of hard-gore Italian horror alive with the bloody, hysteria-laden, supernatural sleaze-fest Grida Dalla Palude.

The film's pacing, robust acting performances, and sound design prove more authentic than the distractingly too-crisp HD video aesthetic, although, the smoke-diffused sequences proved atmospheric. The revenging matriarch motif is a popular trope in art house/ Grindhouse splatter, and Grida Dalla Palude is another mostly credible, albeit, conspicuously low budget addition. The sordidly misogynistic milieu of the hatefully hedonistic hunters proves nastily convincing, culminating in a truly eye-poppingly goofy-gruesome climax. In conclusion, fans of bloody Euro-schlock should be all over this like crooked smiles on a Halloween Pumpkin, and I certainly dug it way more than I expected to, with TV Crimes's driving synth-doom score being a highlight.

 The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace (2024) – Mark Polonia.

'Don't eat the Giallo snow!!!!!'

Excitingly signed up to a palpably shady model agency Ariana's (Alyssa Paige) future initially appears prosperous, until a sinister stalker casts a blackened shadow of fear over her sordidly overexposed 'model' life. Some of Gialli's more savoury ingredients are stylised lighting/fluidic camerawork, naked Euro-starlets, exhilarating soundtracks, and sensationally bloody kills are frustratingly absent in The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace. While it is relatively simple to ape the artworks of the period, it is far less straight forward reimagining the sumptuous, prodigiously glamorous visual aesthetic of the late 60s/early 70s, and Polonia's modest budget proves a hindrance to making The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace a credible neo-Giallo. I must hereby openly confess, Ariana's blatant inability to do but one convincing push-up got me feelin' a wee bit stabby myself!

Pretty Ariana is a saftig enough Fräulein, and the pablum text, amateurish performances, persistent lapses into goofiness, happily, provides unintentional jocularity. The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace's overall tone is flat, and colourless, prosaically mounted on HD video, and curiously lacking any of the bravura sleaze, and scintillatingly sanguinary mayhem of the Gore-blasted Gialli of yore. The lugubrious 'Biff' lookalike turns up, and he proves good for a few smirk-some interludes, but it is entirely just to claim that the laboured Giallic content in The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace felt contrived. Opting for a unique twist on a period Gialli, all the female protagonists herein keep their skimpies on, which wouldn't have made Lenzi or Fulci very happy, can't say it did much for me either. I did nonetheless enjoy the plug for a Home Essential Giallo-ready knife, which makes a winning change from J&B whiskey!