Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation. (2009) – Mike Watt.

'I can't believe I ate the whole thing??!!!'

Things go supernaturally askew during some boozy sorority shenanigans at a local bowling alley hang-out, as the sultry owners of the joint get their demon on! Having a lurid moniker like Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation, no one is going to expect nuanced film-making on the level of Bela Tarr, or Andrezj Zulawski, and with a slinky-malinky cast of bouncy B-screamers, including icons Brinke Stevens and dishy Debbie Rochon, one may expect plentiful top-popping, smutty banter, and righteous levels of schlocky splatter-a-rama-ding-dong! I think that it is entirely fair to say that this is one horned-up horror-com that will encourage the more excitable members of the audience to give their balls a vigorous polish! Mean Girls spliced with Gutterballs, all smothered in the pungent aroma of Troma and y'all get the unholy spawning of Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation. This is a fun n' frisky B-Horror ride, expect quality buffoonery, sparky badinage, and a goofy gore-blasted climax! Taffy (Sofiya Smirnova) and her bestie Lisa (Nikki McCrae) are likeable, wholly sympathetic protagonists, and I also massively dug on the deliciously demonic antagonists, making this, pretty much, a win-win deal. Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation is light on T&A, but it gets a pass, since it is a genuinely funny, playful, consistently entertaining B-Horror lark!

 Le Petite Mort (2009) – Marcel Walz.

Luridly based upon a gory true crime history yadda-yadda-yadda. Does La Petite Mort's explicit violence, graphic S& M brutality, sordid erotica, and preponderance of grisly torture slaying provide good value to the more debased horror fan? Happily, yes, with a soupcon of no! Once again, the old adage of 'you don't have to be a card-carrying pervert to get the moist out of La Petit Mort, but it certainly helps is bloodily reinforced! Performances and technical aspects are robust, the main points of interests should be, just how gruesome are Olaf Ittenbach's practical FX, and are the sweetly slaughtered honey babies easy on the eye? Aye!!! no worries there! Three young tourists end up in an especially sleazy S & M bar, and become the victims of a snuff/torture live stream. It is often said that extreme sexualized horror provides a catharsis, but I remain unconvinced, I believe these snuff-shockers communicate directly to the dimming vestiges of our primordial DNA, or, jaded folk simply like to see glissy intestines smeared gratuitously upon exposed breasts! Eroticized cruelty can be traced back to the likes of Jess Franco's Sexorcismes, or art house shocker 120 days in Sodom,which of itself references one of the more hideous traits in man, warmongery, and the multifarious insanities manifested when one side, and the another, blindly follows orders. If Franco had shot this, there would be far more Sapphic action, and saftig siren Lina Romay would spend at least 20 minutes grinding lasciviously, enthusiastically tending to any proximal sex organs. All hail Romay, sadly no longer with us, but NEVER forgotten. The dearth of nudity proved a buzz kill, but the plentiful gore has a palpably nasty edge, and the club's evil proprietress is a stone-cold skell.

 Weekend Pass (1984) – Lawrence Bossof.

With its slavish adherence to smutty incident, bawdy humour, Horndog males, ribald hi -jinks, thinly sketched caricatures, and clunky dialogue, infamous Pulp-makers Crown International Pictures could never once be accused of flaunting their idiosyncrasies. Four likeable swabbies savour the sinful sights and perky electro pop sounds of L.A. During a gaudy weekend of booze, and eagerly anticipated iniquity! To their credit, I don't believe Crown International Pictures had any intention of making art, merely churning out easily digestible, lowest common denominator soft core, Drive In shenanigans. Lawrence Bossof's Weekend Pass is good for a oner, even if it is a largely inane experience. In its favour, Weekend Pass does sporadically provide a garish, neon-hazed snapshot of 80s L.A. Along with some attractive ladies, and a pleasingly bouncy score. I didn't exactly hate Weekend Pass, as some of it even expresses a modicum of genuine wit, as the monotony is momentarily enlivened with a memorable sequence in a comedy club, hosted by the legendary Phil Hartman! An amiable enough Crown International time-killer, but, quite frankly, this Naval L.A. Romp is currently showing severe signs of battle fatigue.

 The Marseille Contract (1974) – Robert Parrish.

This compelling, thrillingly hard-boiled Euro-thriller has an exceptional international cast, headed by Anthony Quinn, James Mason, and national treasure Michael Caine. Terse action, a sharp script, agile direction, and another magnificently moody score by Roy Budd makes The Marseille Contract nigh on unmissable vintage entertainment. Grizzled veteran DEA agent Ventura (Anthony Quinn) abhors his sedentary desk job in Paris, stymied by bureaucracy, he becomes frustrated, unable to get the dirt to stick on protected higher echelon drug baron Brizzard (James Mason). Opting for more draconian action, Ventura covertly hires Johnny Deray (Michael Caine) to eliminate Brizzard, but his slick, paranoid quarry proves wily, vicious, and utterly elusive. The Marseille Contract remains an vital 70s thriller, gorgeously replete with stunning Riviera vistas, electrifying action, beautiful jet-set babes, and some juicy cat n' mousing betwixt the seemingly omnipotent Brizzard and no less capable killer Deray. Unlike much of the pallid, redundantly recycled, politically correct action baloney of today, The Marseille Contract demonstratively has both of its balls intact. I can still appreciate the fact that 70s action movie foreplay is administered behind the screaming pistons of ton-up, road-burning supercars!

 Beyond Justice (1991) – Duccio Tessari.

Slickly Gung-ho 90s action/adventure stars Rutger Hauer, Carol Alt, Omar Shariff, and Elliott Gould in a 'Powerful tale of passion, intrigue, and betrayal...'BEYOND JUSTICE!!!'. Aye! I nabbed that directly from the Vidmark Entertainment VHS trailer (YT); while succinct, the booming bathos still kinda made me giggle a bit! I initially thought they might have gone for the more Seagallian vibe of: 'When a mother's beloved son is kidnapped, she would need a MAN willing to go...BEYOND JUSTICE in order to bring him back ALIVE!!!!??? (or, perhaps not!!!???) At this specific point in time, the handsome, wickedly charismatic Hauer was successfully banging out a noisome plethora of boisterous actioners, and while many were DTV pulp, his dynamic presence always brought an additional patina of class.

Undeniably formulaic, Beyond Justice remains a fitfully enjoyable blast of far-flung, shoot 'em up hokum, ably directed by noted Italian genre film-maker Duccio 'Tony Arzanta' Tussari, and enlivened with a rousing score by maestro Ennio Morricone. Fulci Fans may, or not, appreciate the fact that BEYOND JUSTICE also includes Brett Halsey, admittedly in somewhat less grisly guise than Touch of Death!!!! While BEYOND JUSTICE hasn't aged especially well, it is good for a oner, especially doable for serious Hauer completists, plus maestro Morricone, and the exotic locale provides a little more cinematic heft. On a more personal, admittedly spurious note, I quite enjoyed repeatedly saying “BEYOND JUSTICE!!!” aloud in a faux, slightly painful baritone, which I believe was precisely the film-makers intention.

The Pom Pom Girls (1976) – Joseph Ruben.

If you have seen one raunchy Crown International Pictures teen romp, you've seen 'em all, but at least Ruben's boisterous Pom Pom Girls remains one that most closely resembles a credible drama. While it might be utterly fanciful, I've always thought it would be quite lovely if Richard Linklater had echoes of Pom Pom Girls in his creative mind as he prepared Dazed and Confused. Super-gnarly Hot Rods, gnarlier nubiles, hunky, hormonal jocks, prodigious levels of Beefburger consumption, and multitudinous examples of rumpy pumpy-inflected hi-jinks. What demonstratively separates Pom Pom Girls from the more mundane iterations of Crown International Pictures schtick are its likeable characters, and the playful, winningly upbeat vibes, excluding the meatball who got a bit previous with his switch-blade! Make Love, not war, guy!!!!

Granted, it is altogether shallow appreciating a bouncy B-flick based largely upon the attractiveness of the perky peeps within it, but it MUST be said, whomever cast Pom Pom Girls did a bang-up job, as it's crammed Pom Pom-to-Pom Pom with some primo eye candy, dude! Joseph Ruben's engaging, sunnily nostalgic Pom Pom Girls has maintained its effervescent nature, and I still maintain a fondness for the deceptively mousey Miss Pritchett (Sandra Lowell), as she kinda (ish) looks like a lady Joey Ramone Hubba! Hubba! Hubba! Gabba Gabba Hey! One of us!!!!! One of Us!!!!! Additional kudos awarded for the audacious Fire truck theft, goofy food fight, egalitarian views of delicious male and female botties, and Robert Carradine's adorable overbite! Ai mi Corazon!!!!!!!

 

 The Cut-Throats (1971) – John Hayes.

This engagingly smutty example of skuzzball, howlingly cheapnis warsploitation presents a risibly inauthentic US Commando unit, tasked to infiltrate, destroy, and liberate all the salient documents within an isolated German barracks. Expect strong, lo-fi'd ultra-violence, splendidly goofy 'rat-a-tat!' action, Full-Frontal nudity, mild horseplay, wretched production design, and excremental dialogue. Much of this is a malodorous bag of greasy monkey fingers, but the relentless crudity of film-making, playfully engenders the palpable aesthetic of kids boisterously playing war during their school lunch break. One of the true glories of grotty exploitation cinema is the fact you can believe that you have experienced the nadir of Grindhouse drossage, and then a splendiferous pile of munge like The Cut-Throats comes along. A rare treat for hardened masochists and super-tweaked bad movie completists, but in its GREAT favour, the feisty Fräuleins are beguilingly luscious, and explosively bodacious bombshell Ushi Digard expresses her prodigious talents quite magnificently! Without belabouring the point, the searing inauthenticity of The Cut-Throats must truly be seen to be disbelieved!