'I Bury The Living' (1958) - Albert Band.

This remains an eerily effective, deceptively haunting 50s Zombie horror from one of B-Hollywood's most prolific genre producers. Suspenseful, paranoiac and downright unsettling, the creepily compelling 'I Bury The Living' is everything one could wish for in a modestly budgeted horror quickie! The basic premise has Richard Boone's caretaker discovering that he quite literally has the power of life and death, an arbitrary gift that morbidly manifests itself via the implausible, but enormously fun conceit of abstractly sticking pins into his ancient, well-worn cemetery plot schematic. It's this ominously off-key horror film's palpable sense of imminent hysteria, and oppressive doom that made such a deep and lasting impression on my spook-loving mind. And while Albert Band is clearly no Jacques Tourneur, the capable director successfully ekes out every last vestige of nerve-shredding terror from this shockingly simple, yet sublimely skewed premise. I readily admit that being a lifelong fan of Albert Band's creepy classic 'I Bury The Living' makes my positive take on it somewhat less than objective.

'Young Bruce Lee and the Last Fist of Fury' (1977) - Shi-Hyeon Kim / Jim Markovic.

The Real Bruce Lee? Mmm, well, not quite, unless you are a vastly forgiving sort, or chronically myopic! In vino veritas, this is in actuality the three, 'not-quite' Bruce Lee's!: Bruce Li, Dragon Lee and some scratchily spliced-in archival footage of the immortal one! Admittedly, the more ardent aficionados of 'Enter the Dragon' may care to look elsewhere for their authentic Bruce kicks; but, should anyone share my lurid yen for crass, cash-in Brucesploitation, they will most certainly dig on the kinetic high-kicking lunacy of 'The Real Bruce Lee'. A delirious squall of gloriously old school Kung Fu is generously unleashed, with nary a shred of cogent plot to impede all the relentlessly ridiculous, strangely edifying chop-socking action! Personally, I can't get enough of this much-maligned martial arts micro-genre, and spurious titles aside, the dynamic duo of Dragon Lee & Bruce Li were ALWAYS eminently watchable pugilists, and their bravura performances in this hysterically 'Ham Fisted Fury' are certainly not without merit to avid Kung Fu freaks. 'Young Bruce Lee and the Last Fist of Fury' remains some epic kung Foolishness, dude!

 

'Succubare' (1982) - Kuo-Hsiung Liu.

'Succubare' (1982) is a wonderfully weird, cryptically carnivorous, digestively unsettling Asian horror/Kung Fu hybrid that rabidly earns its highly dubious status of being one of the more aggressively tummy-troubling HK flicks currently unavailable! Its culinary infamy due primarily to the plethora of grisly, gastronomically eccentric sequences of our heroic, uncommonly crazed epicurean, Cho King, fearlessly choking down upon all invidious manner of sordidly squirming animal tissues! Happily, the always welcome sight of martial arts maestro, Carter Wong's familiarly Stoic visage lends a soothing, albeit brief sense of normalcy to an otherwise recklessly confounding, and sordidly stomach-churning schlock-fest! Even within the richly bizarre canon of extreme Asian cinema, Kuo-Hsiung Liu's galling Succubare sinfully sticks out like the proverbial cock in a nunnery. Which, of course, is precisely why you should see it as soon as possible. Snakes Alive!!! 'Succubare' is one succulently strange, gorily gourmandizing cinematic feast, filled to the B-Movie brim with exquisitely exotic edibles! (Just don't forget the Pepto-Bismol!)

 

 

 

'The Devil with Seven Faces' (1971) - Osvaldo Cipriani. 

Osvaldo Cipriani's 'The Devil with Seven Faces' (1971) is a minor, though not entirely uninteresting early 70s Giallo/crime thriller hybrid that colourfully introduces us to the plight of vexed vivacious blonde Julie Harrison (Carroll Baker) who disturbingly finds herself being inexplicably harassed by a aggressive pair of mysterious, ill-tempered villains for shadowy motives wholly obscure to her. Understandably distressed, Julie turns to her lawyer friend Dave Barton (Stephen Boyd)for aid. Not entirely convinced, Barton blithely dismisses her, but not long after leaving his office Julie becomes the unwelcome victim of an attempted kidnapping! 

While Barton and his friend Tony Shane (Hilton) heroically come to her aid, sadly, Julie's problems are only just beginning! After receiving troublesome phone-calls from her estranged twin sister Mary, it soon transpires that her sinister sister Mary may have been directly involved in a major diamond heist, and by riskily double-crossing her criminal cohorts, and deserting her husband, Mary's life becomes forfeit! To compound sister Julie's woes ever further, these vengeful, increasingly ruthless criminals erroneously believe that Mary is Julie, and will stop at nothing to reclaim their twice-stolen booty! Meanwhile, Barton appears to have vested interests of his own, Tony becomes romantically entangled with Julie, thereby jeopardising his own safety. Not always perfectly executed, Osvaldo's lukewarm, convoluted, frequently sluggish thriller is buoyed by its capable cast and a surprisingly dramatic confrontation within a picturesque Dutch Windmill! 'The Devil with Seven Faces' is a curates egg, its modest appeal, perhaps, being to those more forgiving, obsessively-minded Euro-cult completists. The blazingly beautiful Giallo goddess Carroll Baker makes for a distractingly nubile protagonist, and the gaudy, loungier-than-usual Stelvio Cipriani soundtrack bouncily elevates the film's more prosaic elements! 

 

 

'Hotel Fear' aka 'Pensione Paura' (1977) - Francesco Barilli.

This long neglected, erotically charged Gothic-singed Giallo from Francesco Barilli is not only entirely undeserving of such ignominious treatment, its recent HD restoration was long overdue, and richly deserved! In addition, I have noticed that Luc Merenda is frequently given short shrift as an actor, which is an opinion I resolutely do not share, but even his harshest sceptics might need to momentarily retract their claws, as devilishly handsome, charismatic Merenda nastily manifests a strikingly sordid performance as the unleavened sleazebag Lothario Rodolfo, a super-skeezer abuser, rakishly replete with a slimline scumbag 'tash and oily, slick-backed barnet! Much of Barilli's deliciously voyeuristic, sin-suffused chiller's oppressive atmosphere is optimised by the fantastic score, maestro Adolfo Waitzman creates a subtle sense of unease that complements the increasingly debased activities within this benighted locale. I adore Francesco Barilli's stylish, darkly degenerated, enjoyably off-kilter thriller 'Pensione Paura', and I am quite sure that this needlessly obscure Italian thriller will soon attract a great number of fresh admirers, especially since it towers above much of the tepidly recycled terror tedium produced today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Cadaveri Eccellenti' aka 'Illustrious Corpses'(1976) - Francesco Rosi.

Master director, Francesco Rosi deftly helms this compelling, elegantly complex, beautifully stylized paranoid thriller exploring the valiant investigations of experienced Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura). Rogas disturbingly unearths darkly unsettling truths in this confounding case of the execution of high profile judges. Are these simply the crazed actions of a vengeful sniper with a murderous grudge, or, are the assassinations of ageing magistrates part of a sinister political conspiracy of far-reaching consequence? 

The paranoid, fascinatingly labyrinthine plot is exciting mounted by Rosi, and one couldn't ask for a finer protagonist in the inimitable, enigmatically crumpled form of the sublimely charismatic Lino Ventura. A truly brilliant actor whose dazzling CV boasts star turns in many of the finest examples of European crime cinema, including some of Jean-Pierre Melville's greatest! His dogged interpretation of Stoic Inspector Rogas might arguably be one of Ventura's most thrilling, and exquisitely nuenced performances. 'Cadaveri Eccellenti' (1976) remains a sharply written, rewardingly complex political thriller of the highest calibre, ranking alongside, Damiani's similarly gripping 'How To Kill a Judge'  as one of the 1970s most cogent conspiracy thrillers.