A Garden Without Birds (1991) – Akira Nobi.

A Garden Without Birds explicitly presents a grisly tale of an artist without inspiration. Socializing boozily in a hotel, his companions include excitable call girls, and in true Nikkatsu Porno tradition,a pair of conspicuously pilled-up, rubber-clad S&M sadists! For all its brevity, Nobi's outré A Garden Without Birds luridly provides recidivist smut-junkies a gruesome cornucopia of delicious degeneracy! An aggressively hedonistic trip, A Garden Without Birds comes atcha pretty gnarly, its savagely surrealistic cavalcade of sinister sex, and carnal depravity vibes twistedly like Un Chien Andalou on Beta-tested MKUltra hallucinogens! I'm surprised that Akira Nobi's memorably mad short didn't include a disclaimer warning patrons that the baby being barbecued was fat and ugly, therefore absolutely safe to eat! In closing, I've never been quite sure whether the usage of plaintive classical music over rampant scenes of bloodletting, softens, or increases the overall impact of thrillingly gratuitous, body-rupturing ecstasy!?

 Pola X (1999) – Leos Carax.

Leo Carax's vibrant, consistently intriguing, exquisitely French drama presents an effete, greatly privileged young author Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu), who dramatically rejects his bourgeois status, absconding to the city with Isabelle (Yekaterina Golubeva)a breathlessly beautiful, desperately pale, itinerant woman who claims to be his estranged sister. Pierre's urge to escape his overtly tactile, smothering older sister (Catherine Deneuve), and plainly neurotic fiance Lucie (Delphine Chulliot) is not only relatable, I believe it is nigh on essential, otherwise he would inevitably be absorbed into the vastly indolent corpus of the ruling elite. Like all works of anguished existentialist cinema, a series of tragedies fatefully befall the two isolated, increasingly intimate protagonists. The performances are really rather lovely, and Carax's visually compelling narrative proves cinematic, rather than literary, which is so often usually the case with French cinema.

The increasingly frantic final act, is, for me, absolutely compelling, the arrival of the fragile, waif-like Lucie certainly provides for a classically tragic ménage a trois. While I can see why many would find tousle-haired, neo-beatnik Pierre a spoiled, dilettantish character, perhaps, even a little vapid, I believe his drive to write something truly exemplary is quite genuine. His vagabond existence in this reclaimed industrial squat is not only sustaining, but may provide the galvanizing inspiration he previously lacked. Cinema, at its very best, should provide ambiguities, make space for ambivalence, thereby allowing the viewer to inform his, or her own views on the protagonists inner motivations, good, bad, or ugly! Tragic, sensual, hysteric, visually sumptuous, and surprisingly humane, Leos Carax's divinely immersive drama was a film I was more than happy to experience again!

 The Undertaker (1988) – Franco Steffanino.

Murder maestro Joe Spinell returns to heavy breathing duty in morbid Necro-slasher The Undertaker, arguably one of the VHS-era's most entertaining Necrophilic shockers. Produced in the tail-end of 1980s, The Undertaker is frequently nasty, atmospherically imbued with a palpable 70s Grindhouse griminess. Not at all stylised, the overly flat lighting, obligatory T&A, largely static camera, and crudely effectively Practical FX, prove bluntly effective. Joe Spinell's sordidly cadaver collecting, sweaty-eyed sicko mortician Rosco, manifestly cementing his legacy as one of the silver screams most magnetic of maniacs! The sinisterly staked hotties are bona fide B-babes, all being gruesomely dispatched in a monstrously macabre fashion by the fascinatingly grotesque 'Uncle Roscoe'.

Ever since I first espied the striking-looking Joe Spinell in Rocky, I was almost instantaneously struck by his singular charisma, unique physiognomy, and his wholly natural dramatic talent, all of which provides 'The Undertaker' with far more depth than most cash-cow stab-fests of the period. While it is not for me to say whether, or not, his great talent was given the best opportunities to shine, Uncle Roscoe remains a compelling example of his bravura gift for bringing additional gravitas to a horror project, regardless of its meagre budget. No longer embalmed in some forgotten film vault, the restored HD edition of The Undertaker is sure to beguile a new generation of slasher addicts.

 Vlad (2003) – Michael D. Sellers.

I'm not saying I'm proud of the fact that the 'Billy Zane in' lure still works, but, frankly, dishy Mr. Zane is not an actor I can stay mad at for too long. Four demographically aligned, conspicuously pretty-pretty young scholars are tasked by faintly sinister professor Brad Dourif to research Vlad Tepes on his own turf, with their handsome guardian Zane providing audiences with a sweet, one-size-fits-all Baltic accent. Glossy, romanticised, pseudo-mythic, and almost bloodless, Vlad proves watchable, in spite of some singular choices. There's some additional guff about evil Vlad's cumbrous, fancy-schmancy occult amulet, and this ancient Dracul clan, which pretty much fizzles out to little of any significance.

Vlad takes his sweet time to arrive, but his loyal fangs shouldn't be too disappointed, as like a true blue-blood, he makes a grand (Guignol) entrance! Hey!!! ONE measly bloody impalement does not an iconic Impaler make!!!! jus' sayin'!!! No offence, dude! but I think the legendarily bloodthirsty warlord deserved better. The screenplay is another example wherein characters seem to appear, and disappear at random, to whit, Brad Dourif is ghosted, Zane is dispatched without fanfare, and this obscure sect remained in the shadows. What Vlad lacks in gore is compensated with lavish, expository flashbacks, a modicum of T&A, and moonstruck couples staring adoring at one another. While Vlad was often in desperate need of a revivifying transfusion of blood, the striking medieval Romanian setting proved atmospheric.

 Teen-Age Strangler (1964) – Ben Parker.

Lithe collegiate women in Huntington, Virginia are being snuffed out by a crazy, daubing the victim's faces with a crude lipstick'd cross. Could the perpetrator be a bloodthirsty beatnik? Turn on to 60s schlocker Teen-Age Strangler and find out!!!!!!...if you DARE!!! The buttoned-down cop believes that the maniac is one of The Fast Backs, a delinquent gang of fresh-faced drag racers! In a giddy era of Teenage werewolves, and teenaged monsters from outer space, Ben Parker's acne scarred screamer Teen-Age Strangler proves no less adolescent.

The score is peppy, the arid dialogue is hilariously pedantic, and if the director dug how his cast 'acts', then he's kinkier than his Teen-Aged Strangler! A delicious time-capsule to a brilliantine'd/ beatnik'd world that can only ever truly exist in delightfully cheapnis exploitation flicks. The Teen-Aged slaying is largely inconsequential next to the heady pubescent diorama of hormonal fisticuffs, impromptu performances of saccharine rock n' roll, and a singularly low-geared Drag race! The film's title proves more 'gripping' than its content, but I still appreciated it, vibing frothily like a vanilla, Mormon-friendly version of The Sadist!

 Daughter of Dr. Jekyll. (1957) – Edgar G. Ulmer.

'After you've had a nice sleep, you'll feel like another girl!!!'

The maestro of The Black Cat and Detour presents his winning slice of 50s faux gothic terror, providing yet another, albeit alternative misadventure of Stevenson's immortally mutable monster. Beautiful bride-to-be (Gloria Talbott), and her butch beau (John Agar) return to her stately ancestral abode, discovering that one hidden room reveals a most terrible secret pertaining to the fate of Dr Jekyll's Daughter! John Agar was the Tyrone Power of vintage B's, handsome, charismatic, and physically robust, his steely presence often providing the rigid backbone that needfully bolstered the increasingly schlocky scenarios. Bit of a curate's egg, while the atmospheric exterior shots prove lively and expressive, the interiors are mostly leaden, flatly lit, being stolidly suggestive of a fusty TV melodrama. Not always compelling, yet Daughter of Dr. Jekyll's diffused, theremin-enriched scenes of nocturnal monster-mashing remain piquant. Studly John Agar is at his pristine good-guy best, and the lovely Ms. Talbott is surprisingly nuanced as the greatly Gaslit Jekyll heiress.

 Empire of The Dark (1990) – Steve Berkett.

Is it entirely fair to claim that those individuals who dislike bonkers B-cult Empire of The Dark are innately bad people? Well, no, it isn't, BUT!!!!! I'm fairly certain we wouldn't see eye-to-eye on all the important shit in life. Empire of The Dark asks us to believe that a portly, middle-aged man with a dodgy syrup, Christmas cracker 'stash, and LARP-level broadsword skills can defeat the sinisterly sulphurous soldiers of Satan? Call me a hopeless sentimentalist, but, yes, I can absolutely accept that! Dejected ex-cop (Berkett) maintains a justifiable beef with grandstanding Satanic cult leader (Richard Harrison), who ritually slaughtered his delectably voluptuous main squeeze. Post ubiquitous '20 Years Later' title card, and he's returned to perpetrate more hysteric Satanic panic, but NOT on Berkett's watch!!!!

It takes chutzpah, muscular cojones, and an indomitable passion for D.I.Y genre cinema to produce an Empire of The Dark. Aye! One could be all snarky about it, as quite patently, eager beaver Berkett bit off more than he could chew, but like Ed Wood Jr., he had a singular cinematic vision, and fortuitous access to goodly folk that were more than happy to assist him realise his dream. While Berkett comes across like the uncle you thought was so cool when you were 7, and years later, you uncomfortably discovered that 7yr olds know Jack about cool. Pharmaceutical dabbling, booze, and nascent sexual awakenings provided far more beguiling gods. You legitimately CANNOT compile a list of 10 objectively killer B-Movies without including Empire of The Dark, and the fact that it is so infrequently mentioned with deserved reverence, sadly means that all those uncool uncles grew up and became 'film experts'.