A Ritmo De Jess aka The Rhythm of Jess (2013) – Naxo Fiol.

This titillating, shot from-the-hips documentary utilizes an engagingly voyeuristic approach, intimately observing an ailing, yet mentally sharp Jess Franco shooting/improvising his low budget, smut-slathered oddity 'Al Pereira vs the Alligator Ladies'. As a long-time Franco fan, A Ritmo De Jess remains a bona fide cinematic treat, while undeniably frail, having such unfettered access to the psychotronic maestro's film-making process proved fascinating, and Iberian, Euro-cult icon Antonio Mayans gentlemanly presence provides an additional boon. Franco's mental faculties are sharp; asking the portly cameraman about the camera, he dully replies 'it's a Sony!', Jess huffily retorting that he didn't want to know the brand, which was plainly obvious!

A not infrequently cantankerous Jess mentions the less formal shooting style of Cassavetes to his cameraman, who isn't aware of him?!? No diss intended, as he appears to be a Stalwart fellow, but I can imagine Mr. Franco finding it a tad alienating working with such an ill-informed DP. One of the more winning aspects of A Ritmo De Jess is the potently erotic vision of the exquisite Irene Verdu, her wickedly playful nature, picante sultriness, and uninhibited nudity making her one especially indelible Alligator lady! Jess's crew was extraordinarily bare-boned, with producer/actor Mayans acting as gaffer, and factotum, plus, with no visible sound recordist, I must assume, all live sound was captured by the camera's rudimentary mike? Avid Francophiles, and B-freaks alike are sure to appreciate Franco's rhythm method!

 L.A. Aids Jabber. (1994) – Drew Godderis.

Incandescently enraged by a shockingly unexpected AIDS diagnosis, a berserk young man slakes his invidious revenge by dementedly plunging a tainted syringe into any who fatally cross his path! It is impossible to describe the psychotic protagonist's sordid, contagion-spreading modus operandi without expressing a modicum of respect for the director's maniacal audacity at having unleashed such a ferociously filthy feature upon an ill-prepared public. While I can't imagine the film's grossly unsavoury premise would attract a multitude of producers today, L.A Aids Jabber's extraordinarily exploitative, diabolically crude, disgustingly deranged, stupefyingly crass contents might only find favour with all those unrepentant Greasy Stranglers in the sleazier vectors of the Videodrome! 

I can patently see why L.A Aids Jabber might give many contemporary slasher fans the needle, but I'm certainly glad I took the plunge, since this terminally toxic S.O.V monstrosity disgustingly provides a potent antidote to the torpidly trope-centric slasher drivel of today. Raw videography, a toilet door wit, and an inexcusably vile killer, Drew Godderis's scummy SD slasher has all the appreciable depth of a microfibre sanitary pad, but 'Jabber' abso-fucking-lutely MUST be seen at least once!

'A mainline threat to horror's mainstream, this scrofulous S.O.V sickie remains a real throat jabber!' - Mahnfahrt Panzerflesh.

'LA Aids Jabber has been sticking it to the man since the 1990s!' - Mandrill Bumslave.

'Only hardened gore addicts with the thickest skins should dare to take on the LA Aids Jabber!' - Tor Bronson.

 Career Bed (1969) – Joel M. Reed.

I maintain an especially tingly fondness for 'swinging' roughies/stag/cheesecake skin-flicks from the 60s. I dig the hip NYC milieu of booze, reefer madness, boffing beatniks, injudicious promiscuity, Bi-curious explorations, hard-frugging fuzz guitars, and Reed's lurid Career Bed is certainly well sprung, having a spectacularly sordid screen mother, making Mommie Dearest look like Moomin Momma! Hoping to barter nubile daughter Susan's (Jennifer Welles)virginity into a glitzy showbiz career, she rapaciously puts her increasingly jaded daughter through a degrading series of exploitative 'introductions', culminating in a commensurately sleazy conclusion.

Career Bed remains a king-sized provider of splendiferous 60s smut, the future director of Grindhouse Avatar Bloodsucking Freaks proves himself a more than viable creator of hot-to-trot 60s shunt-o-rama. Having a breathlessly beautiful protagonist, some perfectly despicable antagonists, plus a deliciously inane title song prove no small, perky part of Reed's scuzzy immorality tale of rags to bitches. I don't wish to sound crude, or inopportune, but one, or two sequences got me feeling fruitier than a Haribo Holly Hunter. (Am I to assume that the J.Kaplan listed on the credits is THE J. Kaplan?)

 Impostor (2001) – Gary Fleder.

In a dystopian future, an ozone layer depleted earth is at war with the Centuri, an aggressive, technologically superior species, and following a suspected arson attack, premier weapons engineer (Gary Sinise) is captured, interrogated, accused of being a Centuri replicant infiltrator, he escapes, undertaking a deadly flight to prove his own identity! Impostor remains a paranoid, kinetic, impactful Sci-Shoot 'em up, a thrillingly locomotive composite of The Fugitive, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. While this propulsive Sci-fi roller-coaster provides an adrenal gland sapping overload of stylised futurist action, I think it is fair to say the subtleties of Philip K. Dick's short story gets largely absorbed in all gung-ho Starship Trooperisms. One of the stronger reasons Impostor merits a revisit, is the qualitative cast, Stowe, Sinise, and D'Onofrio are all outstanding, with a high energy performance from Mekhi Phifer, concluding dramatically in a satisfyingly white-knuckled climax.

 Ozone! Attack of The Redneck Mutants. (1986) – Matt Devlen.

Following an unreported chemical spill, the catastrophic depletion of the Ozone layer engenders a grotesque physical transformation in the proletarian denizens of some rustic southern backwater, mutating them into ragingly brutal, pus-spewing, gut-chewing horrors! This lively, prodigiously gory indie eco-shocker, like some royal mummy, has successfully weathered the sands of time, delivering all the generously blood-splattered mayhem a gore hound might care to see. The female, whistleblowing protagonist proves especially memorable, as is the ornery, chicken fryin', shotgunnin' grandma who quite clearly deserves her very own franchise!

A gruesome, copiously slime-slathered, full-throttled, goofily enjoyable admixture of Troma and H.G Lewis, Ozone! Attack of The Redneck Mutants is not only a galollopingly grisly hillbilly horror hoedown, it may still prove to be an apocalyptic augur of monstrous calamities yet to come! A gloriously goo garlanded dream on HD, lovingly restored, fiendishly fabulous splatter-bomb Ozone! Attack of The Redneck Mutants is sure to infect a newly appreciative generation of gore-guzzling Vidiots like me!

 Biohazard (1985) – Fred Olen Ray.

'Those horror movies give you weird ideas!!!!'

Gruff veteran actor Aldo Ray turned up in some pretty creaky B-flicks during the twilight of his career, and in some, he appears relatively sober, Biohazard is demonstratively one of the better ones. Following a catastrophic mishap at an off-grid military research facility, a small, psychically manifested being runs bloodily amok, and it is down to likeable hunk Carter (William Fair) and striking, voluptuously endowed empath (Angelique Pettyjohn) to arrest its frenzied, flesh-flaying rampage! Interestingly, even with its stridently 80s synthesizer score, B-maestro Olen Ray's boffo creature feature Biohazard shares many similarities with both 50s Drive-In Sci-schlock, and the gonzoid extravagances of revered psychotronic polymath Ray Dennis Steckler. I dig Olen Ray's shtick, he frequently delivers on the gore, action, and bodacious displays of T&A, which provides the very lifeblood of watchable brain melt. Along with Scalps, Biohazard is one of my fave go-to Olen Ray gems, it's playful, doesn't take itself all too seriously, but has just enough smarts to know what it takes to produce a quality B-feature. As a nipper who grew up wrong on Godzilla /Roger Corman monster mashed quickies, man-in-a-suit, or in this case, child-in-a-suit shenanigans is like Mother's Milk to me!

 Longlegs (2023) – Osgood Perkins.

Enjoyably daft, meticulously predictable, and about as scary as an onion, but each time Cage turns up, oh my! What bountiful larks!!!! Hail Fucking Satan!!! The exquisite Alicia Witt remains absolutely lovely, and, by god, her maternally mental mommy is sexier than all hell!! With only the rarest exception, a great many contemporary horror/genre films are frustratingly easy to read, the historical references, and shameless recycling is so stark, one is only ever truly surprised by the film-makers/writers unabashed refusal to avoid cliche. Lacking intrigue, or genuine menace, Longlegs technical merits are very high, the impressively stylised photography being really rather evocative, but, sadly, I was mostly nonplussed by the unstintingly formulaic narrative.