Armstrong (1998) – Menahem Golan.

Former SEAL, and current military hard-ass Rod Armstrong (Frank Zagarino is tasked by B-icon Charles Napier to investigate the illegal trade of nuclear arms by Mafiosi thugs in Moscow. A serially gun-happy B-Actioner by maestro Golan, starring Charles Napier, Joe Lara, Richard Lynch, and lava-hot honey baby Kimberly Kates??? I'm on this like the rosiest cheeks on a busty Bavarian milk maid! The only cat that portrays intractable Soviet menace with more tempered steel than Stalin is main man Richard Lynch, the absolute go-to guy for bravura, Baltic-bred B-villainy! I can't quite appreciate the point of noisily berating a conspicuously 'B' actioner, just because it is almost indistinguishable from the last DTV shoot 'em you watched, a no less inane concept than chiding an honest barkeep for pouring you another pint of Guinness that tasted exactly like the previous one...Hey!!! if it 'ain't broke, right???? I dig straight shooter Zagarino's work, and his joyously lunkheaded, Gung ho shoot 'em ups, they remain an entirely guiltless pleasure, a peccadillo, more than ably sated by action impresario Menahem's energetic, Moscow-set Kalashnikov-fest Armstrong. I remain unashamedly team Zagarino, and Armstrong is arguably one of his sharper efforts, and fans of righteous, fearlessly fighting femmes/ girls-with-guns will rate the kinetic chase/fisticuffs by the distractingly delicious Kimberly Kates.

 Blue Desert (1990) – Bradley Battersby.

Comic book artist, and recent rape victim (Courtney Cox), up-sticks, moving to the Arizonian boonies, and very soon discovers sleepy tumbleweed towns have abusive skells too. Took a trip back to the early 90s with Bradley Battersby's suspenseful indie psychodrama Blue Desert, and it wasn't half bad at all, having far more of a noirish Red Rock West vibe than I recall. While brooding Craig Scheffer's twitchy performance won't garner plaudits for subtlety, I found his attractively hirsute, desert stoner persona strangely compelling. Blue Desert is arguably a mite lightweight, but it remains a robust thriller, the angelic Courtney Cox is cute as a button, providing for a vulnerable, greatly sympathetic protagonist. No midnight movie classic, but the performances are solid across the board, Battersby's angsty, paranoid thriller climaxes zestily in a satisfyingly rigorous manner.

 Skinheads (1989) – Greydon Clark.

An angry group of grossly misguided young men and woman, their lizard mentalities inflamed with obsolete, retrograde politics, lay siege to a small mountain town, only to be forcefully repelled by a skinhead-hating vet, excellently portrayed by cult hero Chuck Connors. Is this a savvy upgrade of 'Fight For Your Life'? Who knows, but Skinheads arguably remains one of the more credible agitprop exploitation titles of the 80s. Any socially conscious narrative, no matter how basically executed, that bluntly confronts the unthinking contagion of prejudice is absolutely worthy of consideration. My appreciation of 'Skinheads' is, naturally, merely my own reading, others, must, and will, form their own conclusions as to the perceived thematic merits of Greydon Clark's lurid dissection of a brutalist, sadly still present subculture...where's Chuck Connors when y'all need him, eh? Is it anyway justifiable using violence to combat thugs that oppress the weak and defenceless for their own twisted idolatries? It remains a vastly complex issue, but, surely, to merely stand idly by, and do nothing, is tantamount to complicity, is it not? It is interesting to note that Madolfian supermen are wholly unafraid to utilize poison ivy for intimate toiletry purposes, and that a crucified, modestly-sized bonehead provides an adequate snack for a roving hungry bear.

 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.