Johnny 316 (1998) – Erick Ifergan.

'He wore a white suit, looking just like John Holmes!'

Aesthetic, and Oblique 90s art flick finds an immaculately beauteous-looking, if not altogether angelic Vincent Gallo as a white-clad street preacher on Hollywood Boulevard, seemingly slinging the word of god like much refried hash. Clearly a man with a past, one that remains enigmatic, stoically(ish) abjuring all fleshly sin, he fatefully attracts the obsessively lustful attentions of spectacularly stunning wastoid Sally(Nina Brosch). Give, or take, a theological nuance, his absolute rejection of her instigates his martyrdom, ersatz, or otherwise. Johnny 316 is steeped in biblical allegory, but since I never had much faith in monotheism, all the whore of Babylon/Salome/John The Baptist spiel is anathema to a secular grot like myself.

A Scorsese/Pasolini would have far more of a scholastic handle on Johnny 316, and talkin' about maestro Pasolini, the compelling observations by icon Seymour Cassel, and the seamier denizens of the Boulevard, all of whom believed our boy to be a legitimate godhead, appeared utterly authentic. This apparent usage of amateur/non-actors, perhaps, referencing the neo-realistic ideals of the Italian maestros of yore. Closing on another entirely subjective viewpoint, as I don't believe it was in a anyway deliberately intended, Ifergan's film occasionally recalled John Huston's equally fervid Wise Blood. Initially, Johnny 316 didn't get its tentacles too deeply into me, but, to be fair, a good few days later, I started to mull over certain sequences again.

 'Bleed' (2002) – Devin Hamilton.

Post-Scream heralded some egregiously opportunistic horror trash, yet goofy masks, and an unrepentantly cheapnis S.O.V splatter aesthetic can infrequently produce righteous terror toss like Bleed. Not terribly big on smarts, but generously endowed with pleasingly gratuitous top popping and gnarly blood-spillage, Bleed remains a bloody good retrograde slasher. I also appreciated the fact that the first gruesome kill was an appetisingly leggy bro in a miniskirt, suggesting that the killer was an equal opportunity psycho. I'd like to say I was above all the crass, Uber-frat dude pool party shenanigans, but it's indelibly part of Bleed's winningly unsophisticated charms.

The hokey 'murder Club' gimmick rang a tad falsely, but triumphant B-Babe Debbie Rochon's lusciously loony tunes Maddy proved authentically tweaked. Whack job broads in reality are a legit nightmare, while stabby, hump-happy screen sirens are curiously foxy delicious, and ravishing Rochon is magnetically mental! Bleed's T&A quotient is respectable, exposing some exceptionally fine specimens of male and female anatomy, delectably hard bodies that were luridly penetrated by the be-masked hottie slayer. Outside of Ms. Rochon's beautiful eyes, I was additionally distracted by himbo Shawn's (Danny Wolske) office décor, which conspicuously appeared to display the full gamut of Full Moon poster art! Props to the film-makers for giving Lloyd Kaufman and Brinke Stevens an especially choice little scene!

 Le Sexe Nu. Aka Naked Sex. (1973) – Jose Benazeraf.

Lusty 70s Gallic nookie-fest Le Sexe Nu does exactly what it says on the tin, proffering a Pornucopia of hyper-sexualized nudity, but there's also a sizzling bounty of partially nude sex, and a sultry frisson of stockinged sex, the unjustly reductive title greatly short-changes the intoxicating content. There are introspective, pseudo intellectual musings to embiggen the artsy content of erotic enfant terrible Benazeref's undeniably attractively put together boudoir romp. While the flowery text is largely facile twaddle, the talented cast are exceptional, cocksure Alan Tissier is strikingly handsome, as is the enchanting Chantal Arondel, glacially portraying his increasingly bourgeois screen wife.

Celebrated smut scion Jess Franco was arguably better at this mode of sexploitation than Benzeraf, but there is certainly some credence to the general consensus that 'Le Sexe Nu' is one of Jose's finer works, especially as it retained its scintillatingly sensual allure. Like Jean Rollin, Benazeraf had a pronounced gift for composing an exquisitely tantalizing tableau, there's nothing sordid, or cheaply voyeuristic here, the viewer is offered a stylistically voluptuous feast of picture perfect pulchritude. Like so many who admire luminescent siren Nathalie Zeigler, I can unequivocally state that she burns through the celluloid with no less intensity than a brightly descending angel.

 Berserker (1987) – Jef Richard.

'This Berserker is snout to lunch, dude!'

Berserker might be more ironic than previously thought, the slasher prologue is usually a kid goofing off deadly, then cutting yadda-yadda to '20 years later', whereas Berserker gets fully medieval, and prologues from the 10^th century, by Crom!!!! Since it features B-icon George 'Buck' Flowers, all the acting can't suck absolutely. Insipid text places cookie cutter teens in a mountainous region haunted by a muscle-head in a bear mask, and, of course, the cop's a hard-on, and the kids are even bigger hard-ons, so their backwoods exsanguination is to be celebrated! The pre-slaughter isn't improved by the egregious A.O.R slop, plus the puritanical lack of T&A, and cliched, to the point of utter inanity fireside shtick didn't help! Soft kills are heralded by copious wafts of dry ice, and bassy Maniac-esque synth drones, interestingly, no one gets any nookie, so its safe viewing for the Mean Too generation.

The prodigious amounts of smoke do little to obscure Berserker's innate lack of satisfying mayhem. My advice, watch 'Night of The Demon' again, a dude gets his pee-pee totally ripped off, and that ornery behemoth REALLY knows how swing a set of intestines! As always, Buck Flowers delivers, even though he is clearly taking the proper mickey with his SNL Swedish accent! Berserker is the kind of plasma-lite, cash-in slasher that is best forgotten, but it certainly merits a remake, with Galifianakis, a shoo-in for Pappy Nyquist. It's merely my subjective sartorial observation, but I don't believe the almost-crop top will ever truly succeed the real deal. My mind wondered rather haphazardly during Berserker, right until I pretended that it was the Ultimate Warrior behind the bear mask!!!!!

 Dog Watch (1996) – John Langley.

This gritty 90s DTV crime thriller has beautiful Sam Elliott, and was released by Nuimage, so I'm all over it like shrill, knee-jerk reactions on social media. I would have sat through this rotten cop flick, even with Pauly Shore and Orlando Bloom in it, insightfully, they cast goodly Thespians Esai Morales, and Goombah supreme Paul Sorvino. Plaintive sax over prosaic title sequences is most righteous, and don't let anyone tell y'all any different! As a bonus, Dog Watchers offers the brief opportunity to play the 'Hey!!!! it's that cool-looking Asian guy from 'blah', what's his name again, dude!!!???' Nuimage always dictates a bloody convenience store shoot-out, narratively superfluous, but B-Movie lore, guy!!! Dog Watch ain't smart, and it's routinely dumb, but at no point was I bored watching the hyper-bellicose cop Charlie Falon (Elliot) TCB like a bloody boss!

The text is recycled wrong cop shinola, but Lennie Niehaus's moody score, and Mr Elliott's extraordinary charisma prove magnetic. I could have done without the mummified, mismatched May/December cop jazz, but, what the hey!!!!??? Hollyweird still has a major hard-on for it, so what can ya' do???? The abundance of bloody squibs, stabbings, and gnarly haymaker fisticuffs endows Dog Watch with additional chutzpah. One of Sam Elliott's more Promethean talents is his ability to rejuvenate stock dialogue, so whatever they paid him, it clearly wasn't enough! Dog Watch delivers enough B-Movie bite to maintain interest, but I can imagine those not so predisposed to schlocky crime pics may not share my positive reading. Dog Watch ain't no one's idea of a pedigree cop shoot 'em up, call me sentimental, but I still have a soft spot for mutts!

 Hauntedween (1991) – Douglas Robertson.

Any slasher that playfully commences with a masked nerd perusing a copy of Famous Monsters before committing his dastardly deed is sure to hook me, fortunately Hauntedween maintains its kitschy/creepy vibes throughout. This by-the-numbers collegiate blood-spiller proves winning despite its preponderance of formulaic fraternity fright gimmickry. The extraordinarily smug Kurt (Brien Blakely) is one squeaky clean Abercrombie mench, and while not the finest Thespian, he is a textbook A-1 frat dude archetype. While splatter in the horror house is certainly better exemplified by the likes of Funhouse, or Night of The Demons, Hauntedween gives it a darn good college try! And there won't be a dry ass in the house during Kurt & Mel's (Blake Pickett) touchy-feely reunion!

Hauntedween takes its sweet time getting to the fratboy culling, and when it does, it won't cause The Mutilator any sleepless nights, but there's a bodacious scene of T & (almost) A, the hectic hack n' slash in the horror house delivers a grisly array of outstanding kills, and the Kill Room shtick provides some quality grand Guignol. Hauntedween has pacing issues, and the performances are endearing, rather than compelling, but 'ween has beaucoup B-horror charm, an earwormingly gross theme, and some chewy gore gags. Far more entertaining than I imagined, and it might sound incongruous, appreciating a late-cycle slasher due to its innate wholesomeness, but the film's earnest D.I.Y ethic absolutely won me over.

'These Halloweenies don't have a ghost of a chance getting laid in anything but a grave this Hauntedween!'

 Tunnels aka Criminal Act. (1989) – Mark Myers.

While I cannot readily recall any specific box office bonanza set in a city sewer, there are a number of genre gems like C.H.U.D, Alligator, and schlock scion The Suckling aka Sewer Baby that provided some credible subterranean shocks! Not quite so lurid, playing out like an episode of The Equalizer, Tunnels finds our intrepid, conspicuously attractive heroines Pam (Barbara Bach) and Sharon (Charlene Dallas) investigate a suspicious death, that ultimately leads them to the shocking truth lurking malevolently below! Competent, though not enormously thrilling, Tunnels remains a passable 80s curiosity that has a capable supporting cast, bolstering our two saftig, especially picture perfect leading ladies.

While there are far greater numbers of obscure genre/B-titles being made available today, I'm not always convinced by their continued merit. Tunnels is worth reinvestigating, having an above average TV-Movie-of-The-week aesthetic, plus a disarming duo of pretty, wonderfully engaging female protagonists. John Saxon is always a joy, and Vic Tayback provides a brief, somewhat tangential comedic interlude. The only giant rats are the CEO's running amok in the sewers of big business, embodied by cynical property developer Lance Bellard (Victor Brant). The climax is glaringly goofy, but it didn't discolour my overall appreciation of this fun little B-thriller.