Blood Thirst (1965/1971) – Newt Arnold.

'There have been strange rumours of a Blood Cult???!!!!!'

NYC Cop, and hunky eroto-crime specialist Adam Rourke (Robert Winston)is tasked to solve a macabre series of brutal murders of young women linked to a racy Filipino nightspot. His initial theories of a sex-psychopath prove false, as he later suspects that an infinitely more sinister anthropoid is at work! While the pulpy plot is no less uninspired than the cookie-cutter performances, the exotic Filipino backdrop provides additional aesthetic interest, but ultimately Blood Thirst is mostly sluggish, routine schlock, momentarily enlivened with some tantalizingly lissom totty, and a winningly goofy, stalagmite-faced blood-fiend! Photographically, Blood Thirst is sound, the wallpaper jazz score isn't completely awful, but even avuncular genre icon Vic Diaz can do little to sweeten the tawdry text. The more avid fans of Rene Cordona, Al Adamson, Ted V Mikels, and Jess Franco's monochromatic, Fumetti-flavoured 60s fantasies might well be less critical of Blood Thirst's relative anaemia. Originally paired with sloppy UK Grindhouse gem Bloodsuckers (1971), which would no doubt have provided more entertainment value than by watching this cheapnis, fitfully amusing 60s Filipino/US creature feature on its own.

 The Jekyll & Hyde Portfolio (1976) – Eric Jeffrey Haims.

Delectably nubile trainee nurses at the famed Florence Nightingale Institute are being brutally slain by a mysterious malefactor, and detective Kincaid(Don Greer) is tasked with attempting to unmask this serially sadistic slayer of sultry sirens. While the 'whodunnit' elements of The Jekyll & Hyde Portfolio prove somewhat undernourished, the saucy 'who's doing who' content is tantalizingly generous! Haims uber-cult Grindhouse gem The Jekyll & Hyde Portfolio delivers a luridly libidinous cornucopia of slinkily Sapphic shuntings, alongside a no less abundant voluptuary of hot-blooded hetero grab-ass! I can't imagine that it hasn't already been suggested that Haims deliciously camp period Slasher winningly operates in the same hyper-theatrical, wonderfully wonky paradigm as beloved Grindhouse impresario Andy Milligan.

 The Human Trap (2021) – Lee Moon-Young.

During a rushed, apparently arbitrarily organised camping holiday, four argumentative protagonists soon find themselves isolated, deep within the icy woods, and increasingly deeper in blood-sticky doo-doo! Falling prey to a sinister scenario wherein a portly/twitchy loony with a big chopper, a sordidly scheming Christian and his no less depraved 'doctor' companion start expressing considerable ill will towards them. While Lee Moon-Young's gory backwoods slasher is somewhat derivative, it is not entirely without schlocky merit, and fans of bloody backwoods horror may still get a kick outta the gore-blasting The Human Trap sporadically provides. In truth, this one felt a bit dumb-ass, especially since all the characters herein are portrayed as being deliberately unlikeable? Admittedly, the B-splatter vibe gels a bit better midway through, and things take an enjoyably 'I know What You Did Last Summer' upswing not long thereafter. While this Korean slasher is mostly blood-basted malarkey, I must confess I still dug some of it, especially when the righteous chunkblowing begun in earnest.

 Klischee (2009) - Marcel Walz.

Bloodied, anguished hotties running fearfully through woods gives me wings, and gore-blasting writer/director Walz provides a delicious example of said titillating trope during a voluptuously babe-stuffed title sequence. In Marcel Walz's amiable Slasher-lite, Magma-hot hardbodies and maniacal axemen come together sweeter than quicksilver lube and excitedly elevated botties! I maintain my adolescent fondness for Halloween Night themed slashers, frankly, if y'all can't get your righteous stab on during the macabre festivities abounding annually on Oct 31 then all is already lost!!! The film's visual appeal is certainly NOT hindered by its picturesque, sun-slaked Iberian vistas. The incidental music is frustratingly wretched, and I kinda saw early-doors where it was all heading, but the energetic performances from the saftig, talented young cast are credible, and it concludes appreciably screamy in a cliched, gore-shredded frenzy. The naff title is intentionally ironic as Walz's indie-slasher is manifestly cliche-mongous, certainly no less so than any other poxy slasher, so, what's one more cliché among friends??!!

 Four Dimensions of Greta (1972) Pete Walker.

'suddenly we were attacked by sex mad hippies!!!!'

Beloved Britsploitation Don Pete Walker saucily presents the inevitably tawdry tale of aspirant journalist Hans (Tristan Rogers)tasked to locate the whereabouts of buxom Teutonic au pair Greta Gruber(Leena Skoog), leading to a fleshly diorama of goofily 3-D slap n' drivel. Of all the Soho scions of scintillating 70s celluloid shenanigans, Pete 'Frightmare' Walker has maintained a, dare I say it integrity, the likes of opportunists Derek Ford and Stanley Long manifestly lacked. Like Walker's superior Cool it Carol, the Gielgud of UK Grindhouse Robin Askwith makes a welcome appearance. Walker is a stolid smut-maker, not an especially inventive one, a meat n' potatoes,or, more apropos, a meat n' two vedge merchant. Murray Smith's script is a dog, but able composer Harry South's punchy score is appropriately bouncy, and Dolly-looking starlet Leena Skoog is a peach! Happily, the appalling accents, pony dialogue, and sketchy acting choices provides one-dimensional nookie Noir Four Dimensions of Greta with far more entertainment value than it actually deserves! Not too sure what the furtive raincoat mob made of the abstruse 3-D inserts back in the day, but experienced today they do little more than induce a crippling migraine, due to profound ocular distress! In this 24/7 epoch of Deliveroo, and ceaselessly recycled grot on Netflix, is it still not possible to credibly un-3-D a torpid titty flick? Hey!! I have nothing against a good mucky film, but 4-D Greta 'aint one of 'em, and sadly, wet lettuce Hans has all the charisma of a loo roll cover. Ultimately, I just couldn't give a toss, and that's the most damning thing you can say about an adult feature.

 Gemini aka Soseiji (1999) – Shinya Tsukamoto.

'Has mother stopped saying peculiar things?'

Based upon an Edogawa Ranpo story, cyberpunk impresario Shinya Tsukamoto vividly presents the singularly bizarre Gothic tale of middle-class ex-Army medic Yukio (Masahiro Motoki), and his beautiful new bride Rin (Ryo), cohabiting rather stiffly with his excruciatingly bourgeois parents. Coping with issues at his home surgery, and his wife's amnesia is not made any easier by the sudden tumultuous appearance of a stranger eerily resembling Yukio, excluding his serpentine, grimly blackened leg scars. Kinetic, stylised, hallucinatory, and at times, deliciously outré, maestro Tsukamoto's macabre ménage a trois delivers a generosity of the director's signature mastery of exquisite high-strangeness! As one might expect, the brain-melter visuals can be thrillingly intense, as Gemini provides Tsukamoto fans with a heady abundance of his cinematographic iconoclasm, with powerful performances, painterly photography, and a deliciously disquieting mise-en-scene, one is immediately beguiled by this lucid, extraordinarily idiosyncratic fever-dream. This ghastly apparition that torments the family manifests itself in a frantic series of memorably grotesque interludes. I have always been profoundly unsettled by the idea of a doppelganger/evil twin scenario, and Yukio's demonic double proves especially sinister! Gemini remains a gorgeous-looking, exhilaratingly off-centre terror trip, one that is sure to elicit wonder, intrigue, and rapacious WTFuckery in heroic doses! I found Gemini's tweaked premise to be fiendishly compelling, and the film's bold colour palate proved no less captivating than the breathtakingly beautiful Rin. The more avid Asian cinephiles will certainly appreciate the fact that charismatic icons Tadanobo Asano, Renji Ishibashi, and Naoto Takenaka also provide expectedly dynamic cameos.

 Missing You (2016) – Mo Hong-Jin.

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster.

At just 7yrs old Hee Joo's (Shim Eun-Kyung) detective father was killed. After suspected serial killer Ki-Bum (Him Sung-oh) is released 15yrs later, fellow detective Dae-Young (Yoon Je-Moon), and the slain detective's daughter take an especial interest in Ki-Bum's release. This deliciously dark-toned Korean crime thriller is stylishly directed, with robust performances, and an utterly compelling, razor-honed narrative. While others may feel quite differently, I never tire of gritty, vividly blood-spattered revenge thrillers, especially those produced in Asia, since many are strongly inflected with gory horror tropes, Missing You is certainly no exception. Expect scenes of graphic violence, thrilling drama, a fascinating, hugely sympathetic protagonist, gripping suspense, and an absolutely ripping climax! One of the reasons revenge chillers are ubiquitous, and prove so popular, is that so many of us have our own secret yen to rebalance the scales. While the super-sinewy Ki-Bum has a singularly brutal modus operandi, it must be said, he winningly provides for a dastardly, evilly charismatic nemesis! There's a tremendously thrilling interlude in Ki-Bum's apartment which raises it stratospheres above the infinitely more routine Serial Slashers from the U.S. I have always thought the Slasher was one of the more mundane iterations of horror, yet Missing You excitingly proves that it doesn't have to be thus.