'Man of Violence' (1970) – Peter Walker.

Peter Walker's hard-boiled, exhilaratingly brutal, double-dealing 'Man of Violence' remains a pugnacious, bullet-paced, corkscrew twisted 70s crime thriller. Conniving thugs, murderously Machiavellian business tycoons, Soho Sleazoids are on the bloody trail of a fortune in gold bullion, with hammer-fisted, sharp-shooting villain, Moon (Michael Latimer) fatally embroiled in this deadly gold rush! Moon's rough-hewn charm, feral cunning, and fearsome tenacity are all put to good use in order to keep his hard alabaster body on a lead free diet! Moon's intense alpha dog charisma proving irresistible to slinkily scheming pussycat, Angel (Luan Peters). Rapacious glamour girl, Angel's dangerously distracting curves, magnetic come hither quiver, and edible smile reveals little of her mercenary, gold-lusting duplicity! Punchier than an Austin Martin, sharper than a prison shiv, Martini cool Gangster films like 'Man of Violence' come along only once in a blue Moon!

 

 

 

'The Monster' (1970) – Peter Sasdy

Beloved Hammer alumnus, Peter Sasdy's perverse, post-natal nightmare 'The Monster' features one of the more dastardly diminutive, diaper-draped devils in Brit-Horror's heroically hideous history! The ungodly nature of this Satanic Sprite is to instil a grisly phantasmal fright in all who cast their incredulous eyes upon the benign exterior of this monstrously malevolent mite. While the malign ministrations of this infernal, mammary mauling infant are purest unleavened schlock, his outré matricidal machinations remain a deliciously off-key premise! No poorly remembered horror film based upon the curse of a voyeuristic, sexually frustrated dwarf can ever truly be without a modicum of Mephistophelean mirth.

Boasting a fine cast, Ralph Bates and glamorous terror-temptress, Joan Collins are ably supported by Donald Pleasence, Eileen Atkins, and the voluptuous vamp Caroline Munro. Atkins is divine as the sternly sin-slashing Sister Albana, and there's nun more suited to exorcise the mother goring imp! Engagingly silly, but while dramatically small in stature, Sasdy's 'The Monster' is delightfully deformed! A murderous umbilicus of preternatural horror draws ever-tighter around the onlookers fear-constricted throat, and the final trimester of teat-tormenting terror will have you grasping for your terminal breast! A great many of the film's detractors regard it as stillborn, while I'm nappily screaming its schlocky praises, baby! Amen!

'Fatally Natal nightmare 'The Monster' aka 'I don't Want to Be Born' remains a hallucinatory, hysteria-laden Brit-Horror masterclass in diminutive demonic despotism! - Weirdlingwolf.

 

 

'Emperor Tomato Ketchup' (1970) - Terayama Shuji.

A mad, surrealistic, frequently euphoric experiment in exuberant agitprop non-conformity. The frantically episodic, boundary-blasting, sexually permissive Emperor Tomato Ketchup remains a profound sauce of cinematic inspiration! Wilfully warped, beautifully baffling, and sinisterly strange, just don't ask me what any of it is supposed to mean! 

 

 

 

'Black Hair, Velvet Soul' (1982) aka Dan Oniroku kurokami nawa fujin– Mamoru Watanabe.

 Mamoru Watanabe's engrossingly erotic crime drama concerns a degenerate husband's escalating gambling debt that fatefully drags his beautiful, virtuous wife into the vile clutches of an impotent Yakuza sadist! There's a palpable melancholy to the wholly innocent wife's (Izumi Shima) plight that I found genuinely moving. Engagingly written by Roman Porno icon, Oniroku Dan, his sleazy, tantalizingly lurid S & M tale being infused with moments of dark poetry caught me somewhat unawares. Smartly directed by Watanabe, his fine cast brings an unexpected pathos to the sordidly Rope bound Yakuza shenanigans, with the elegant, Izumi Shima being especially poignant in her demanding role as the genteel, greatly suffering, self-sacrificing wife.

 

 

 

Terrifying Girls High School Lynch Law Classroom' (1973) Norifumi Suzuki.

Norifumi Suzuki's hysteria-laden 'Terrifying Girls High School Lynch Law Classroom' is a glistering goldmine of Asian grindhouse excess! This is anything but another unusually exhilarating teenage slag-fest with all the plentifully perverse Pinku elements that makes it so effortlessly rewatchable! There's very little to beat boggling at these exquisitely naughty, gruesomely bloodthirsty psychotronic delinquents unleashing their bespoke B-Movie bellicosity! Graphic, absurd, and splendidly sleazy, the vividly stylised,'Terrifying Girls High School Lynch Law Classroom' provides slicker entertainment than its cumbrous moniker might suggest. DON'T underestimate razor-Blade Remi!!! and whatever you do, DON'T cross the Boss with the cross!!! Norifumi Suzuki is the phooken man!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

'Russian Terminator' aka 'The Russian Ninja' (1989) Dir. Mats Helge Olsson.

If Tommy Wiseau had concocted his own wantonly WFT-raddled Ninja actioner, Helge Olsson's funky fight farrago would win by a knock-out! Right from the goofy get go, Russian Ninja is the clowning apex of batso bad movie buffoonery! The main alpha dude, Mark (Frederick Offrein) resembles a Poundland, Gunnar Hansen, fights like a girl, and delivers dismal dialogue with phonetic monotony!?! This scrappy Scandinavian slug-fest is a cascading wonder of deliciously inept Ninja nut-baggery! No more Russian than a seething barrel of frightfully fermented Surströmming, 'Russian Ninja' has lost little of its wayward charm! Mirthsome idiot savant dialogue, spectacularly sissified fisticuffs, and squib-tastic gun play, guarantees that the gonzo entertainment of, Mats Helge's immaculately inane B-Movie belter cannot be denied!

The pulpy 'plot' concerns a shadowy moustachioed government official (Timothy Earle) tasking sweater-clad silver fox, Mark to protect his bodacious-looking daughter, Eve (Helle), who somewhat implausibly has been press-ganged into stealing some of her father's most valuable, détente dashing documents! The espionage elements are a potage of piffle, happily adding another viscous layer of savoury B-Movie cheesiness to it all. The Russian Ninja has everything, with boundless daftness to spare! I can't believe that I have been saying ninja incorrectly all these years, it's Neen-ja! Who'd a thunk it, eh? NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN-JAAAAAAAAAA!!!! There's much golden grot herein, with a big laff as the 'Russian Ninja' is fatefully unmasked, Eva gushing her lurid appreciation of her sinewy saviour, even though he looks like a jar of cold farts!