The Great Alligator (1979) – Sergio Martino.

'The Great God of the river has been roused!!!!!'

Ever since hyperbolic Drive-In gems like The Giant Claw, captivatingly schlocky horrors about enraged, elephantine man-slaying beasties have captured the hearts, minds, and bloody gizzards of cinematic thrill-seekers far and wide. Gnarly Creature Features continue to beguile horror fans, as since time immemorial man has been acutely aware of his mutable place in the food chain, take away his knife, gun and missiles and he is rendered terribly fragile, fatally susceptible to any number of mammalian/insectoid/amphibian aggressors. In this instance, Italian action/Giallo maestro Sergio Martino places his quality cast in the ravening jaws of a predatory, monstrously outsized alligator, and thus another snappy Creature Feature is gruesomely born! Not for the first time handsome, altogether classy Claudio Cassinelli provides additional depth, plus Stelvio Cipriani's funky score is pretty sweet, and you certainly wouldn't kick blistering bombshell Barbara Bach out of bed for eating monkey nuts! Admittedly, it's somewhat naïve, but I'd like to believe at the core of every righteous monster-fest there beats the liberal heart of a socially conscious eco-warrior. Euro-cult fans will no doubt appreciate the fine contributions from Romano Puppo, Silvia Collatina, Demons icon Bobby Rhodes, and a brilliantly twitchy cameo by the Bond that got away Richard Johnson.

 Tammy and the T-Rex (1994) – Stuart Raffill.

'True love never fails, honey!'

One of the more observable truths of living within someone else's universe is the untenable fact that Fast and Furious became a franchise, while Tammy and the T-Rex was relegated to midnight movie cultdom. Granted, on paper, the premise may appear astronomically absurd, but if one cared to dig a little deeper, Tammy and the T-Rex is ultimately about the indomitable objectivity of true love. Via accepted B-Movie machinations, Paul Walker's living brain is transposed into an ambulatory facsimile dinosaur, facilitated by the advanced bio-mechanical technologies of amiable crackpot scientist Terry Kiser. Inevitably played for gallopingly goofy, Godzuki-inflected laffs, one may, not unjustifiably, fail to see that Denise Richards love for her young beau is quite genuine, his wholly alien transformation, while undeniably unprecedented, provides her with the experiential opportunity to accept that love is born, not from what is seen, but from what is so deep, and profoundly felt.

No doubt, many, if not all, will vociferously refute my overtly romanticized interpretation of Tammy and the Teenage T-Rex, and yet, be it a film, a specific piece of music, work of art, or people, NONE is seen with a universal eye, it is singularly experienced through that said individual's absolutely unique lens. I always liked to think that Dinosaurs happily sacrificed themselves en-masse to provide finite, combustible energies for cars, motorbikes, power plants, and those sleek aeronautical tubes, that so noisily transport millions of pallid holidaymakers to exotic, sun-kissed locales, but I believe we have excessively abused the privilege. Would Tammy & The T-Rex work today, perhaps not, as Paul Walker's brain would inevitably be digitally inserted into a CGI 'Rex, thereby demonstratively losing all the sublime tactility of practical special FX.

 BloodMania (2016) – H.G. Lewis/Melanie Reinboldt/Kevin Littlelight.

Low budget, super-splattery S.O.V horror anthology from the greatly revered gorefather of vintage Gore-blasting Herschell Gordon Lewis. This especially Gruesome Foursome is sardonically hosted by maestro Lewis, and has additional contributions from film-makers Kevin Littlelight and Melanie Reinboldt. Much like an assorted bag of sweeties, compendium horror can be a mixed bag, since the odd indigestible stick of licorice is inevitable. Patently flawed, and frequently sloppy, the goofily gory BloodMania is unable to belie its exceedingly modest budget, but Reinboldt's thrillingly gruesome contribution proves winning. I can't bring myself to be too critical of the veteran Wizard of Gore's final splatter statement, it just wouldn't sit right with me. There's some goodly grisly stuff here, a few lurid laffs, but it looks VERY cheap, the text isn't great, and the sound mix is truly wretched. I simply can't imagine a horror pantheon without H.G. Lewis, the abyss would simply be too awful to comprehend, so my okay-ish take on the episodic chunkblower BloodMania is filtered HEAVILY through a profound love and admiration for his indelible contributions to Grindhouse cinema.

 Spaced Out (1979) – Norman J. Warren.

A snugly spandexed trio of slinky space sirens alight upon earth and proceed to abduct 4 ill prepared locals, 3 disparate men, and a rather prim woman in softly smutty intergalactic romp Spaced Out. Happily, British B-Movie iconoclast Norman J. Warren had the good sense to generously provide the fleshly elements pointedly absent in Spielberg's Close Encounters...nookie, and splendidly saucy space trollops! The comedy content remains strictly below the Van Allen Belt, and the amusingly rudimentary production design is a glowing testament to Blue Peter's credo that there's very you can't make with creative recycling of milk bottle tops, empty squeazy bottles, and used egg cartons. It is a little known fact that at the end of the 70s, with the latterly flourishing British film industry in decline, the minister of culture desperately passed an edict declaring that every 2^nd adult feature absolutely MUST star Barry Stokes, or failing that, Robin Askwith! While the corny dialogue is mostly sub-Carry On prattling, delivered in a broad Sitcom vernacular, Spaced Out remains an amiable enough low budget lark, voluptuously replete with exceptionally delectable looking aliens!

 Murder-Set-Pieces (2004) – Nick Palumbo.

'In my mind's eye, I set fires in your cities!'

Handsome, prodigiously muscular narcissist photographer (Sven Garrett) hungrily prowls the garishly illuminated streets of Las Vegas procuring beautiful female prey for his increasingly perverse edifications. To the director's credit, his degenerate, wholly unsympathetic antagonist appears authentically pitiless, a cruel, sadistically torturing misogynist without the merest vestige of humanity. Brutal, kinky, and ruthlessly mean-spirited, Nick Palumbo's controversially lurid excursion through the darkest interstices of a twisted mind has lost little of its power to beguile/divide horror fans. Virulently voyeuristic, undeniably visceral, and frequently far from subtle, appreciated as a gruesomely reverent tone poem to Grindhouse cinema's more gratuitous excesses, Murder-Set-Pieces remains a grimly effective terror treat. When watching similar fare, it is often hard to divorce oneself entirely from recollections of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, but, for better, or worse, Murder-Set-Pieces gorily proves to be its very own animal. While the cumulative effect of watching this self-aggrandising sociopath ultimately becomes a trifle numbing, it is a more than competent psycho-slasher, and Palumbo's chunkblowing climax resolutely delivers some deliciously perverse, Gialli-inflected mayhem. Concluding on a more personal note, the winning inclusion of beloved TCM alumni, and horror's reigning dark prince Tony Todd proved altogether welcome.

 The Brute Man (1946) – Jean Yarborough.

Striking post war terror icon Rondo Hatton plays the vengeful Creeper, hell-bent on righteously revenging himself upon all those he deems responsible for his terrible plight. This formulaic, yet entertaining enough 40s B-shocker presents the increasingly desperate activities of The Creeper (Rondo Hatton) as he morosely prowls the city's ill-lit streets, brutally breaking the backs of all those unfortunate to cross his lumbering path! The shrill Police Broadcast claiming that the elusive slayer is a 'tall, heavy-set man in a hat and coat' is almost entirely spurious, while the schmutter is correct, poor Mr. Hatton is clearly a frail, ailing gentleman, his suggested bulk, merely the conspicuous padding in his well-worn jacket. More melancholic, than macabre, one can't help but feel a profound sympathy for this solitary, infirm, and utterly unloved creature. Contrary to the braying naysayers, Yarborough's The Brute, like a great many pointedly recycled B-Horrors are flawed by their prosaically plagiarised texts, the fault lies NOT with the estimable Mr. Hatton, who arguably remains the sole reason to watch the film! Undeniably mawkish, I personally found the scenes between the desperately lonely Creeper and kindly piano teacher to be genuinely moving, lending The Brute a frisson of pathos that is so rarely remarked upon.

 The Specialist (1975) – Howard Avedis.

Crown International Pictures presents buff TV hero Adam West in The Specialist, wherein a sweetly seductive female operator Londa Wyerth (Ahna Capri) is nefariously tasked by reactionary political demagogue Pike Smith (John Anderson)to test the integrity of straight shooting, skyrocketing firebrand lawyer Jerry Bounds(Adam West). An amiable, lightweight soap opera with pretensions of adult humour is lent a smidgeon of credibility by decent performances, and a foot-stompingly funky soundtrack, but the frequently facile text strongly suggests that the author is rather less than a 'Specialist' himself. A frothy enough confection from the populist purveyors of raunchy, exceedingly broad, comedy-inflected Drive-In hanky panky. Dramatically vapid, the charismatic titular star certainly compensates with her dazzling beauty, and prodigiously pulchritudinous charms! I believe that it is just to claim that the most appreciative audience for The Specialist will be from those more ardent Adam West fans, a sizeable cinematic clique I am happily a member of.