Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness (1995) - Shimako Satō.

Shimako Satō's enduring, continually bewitching 90s J-horror cult classic is based on the popular supernatural/occult manga Eko Eko Azarak. Masquerading as Kawaii transfer student Misa Kuroi (Kimika Yoshino), she is, in actuality, a powerful white witch, visiting cursed schools to dispel the malign machinations of Mephistopheles! Once enrolled at school, Kuroi very swiftly divines an occult presence, but as the malevolent incidents escalate, the fearful students falsely accuse Kuroi of being the evil instigator! Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness remains a heroically hellzapoppin' high school horror romp with lively characters, a beguiling performance from Yoshino, sapphic distractions, spectacularly sinister spells, and a gorgeously gruesome, rousingly brimstone-blasted climax! 

 

 

 

Fake Documentary Q (2021) - Kôtarô Terauchi.

EP: Film Inferno.

Fake Documentary Q is a gripping new Japanese FF web series that successfully captures the angsty, oldchool J-horror spirit we all love so dearly! This palpably claustrophobic, enjoyably eerie episode explores the baffling cold case of a young couple who went missing during a trip to the coat, leaving behind some personal effects and darkly enigmatic video recordings! As the plainly unnerved investigator reveals the increasingly bizarre contents of the couple's disturbing cave exploration footage, the unsettling images become ever more sinister. I picked up on some evil occult vibes of the original Blair Witch during this wickedly creepy episode, especially from that freakazoid wicker doll!! Zoiks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

So Sweet...So perverse (1969) – Umberto Lenzi.

Giallo supremo Umberto Lenzi's bravura talent for making dazzling, twist-laden thrillers is put to vivid use in one of my favourite jet-set skewering 60s Italian shockers. The glamorous veneer of these hedonistic, dangerously duplicitous, and increasingly malign protagonists is gradually exposed as a most brittle facade, only temporarily obscuring their altogether murderous lust for sex, power and wealth! Once again, the compellingly circuitous plot is brilliantly conceived by prodigiously talented thriller writer Ernesto Gastaldi. So Sweet...So perverse features Lenzi's wickedly ambivalent blonde murder muse Carroll Baker, along with equally stunning Euro-cult legend Erika Blanc, two exquisitely vulpine Giallo vixens. Villains or victims? The answer might come a little late for opportunistic Lothario Trintignant, but the sordid scheming provides some deliciously decadent entertainment from a true master of sin-soaked suspense! So Sweet...So perverse has another killer score by Riz Ortolani, a dazzling cast to die for, and a diabolically twisted ending that will take your breath away!

 

 

Grandview, U.S.A. (1984) – Randal Kleiser.

The tough, vivacious owner of a Midwestern demolition derby Michelle Cody (Jamie Lee Curtis) has an affair with lusty boy next-door Tim Pearson (C. Thomas Howell) and loves rugged married driver Ernie Webster (Patrick Swayze). This boisterous, Brat packed comedy, is a bumper to bumper good time, a fun 80s VHS-era classic! I'm surprised that this slam bang, star-packed dramedy isn't mentioned more often during rose-tinted bouts of 80s film group nostalgia. Grandview, U.S.A. certainly isn't obscure, its upwardly skyrocketing cast is far too conspicuous, but the likeable performances, wholesome small town fuzzies, and peppy score are often overlooked. While physically gifted, and certainly no slouch as a dramatic actor, I never quite warmed to Curtis, but considering how much they get paid, having to like 'em seems a tad excessive. That being said, I must admit Curtis won me over with her no robust, no BS performance as Michelle Cody. Grandview, U.S.A. remains an enjoyably petrol-headed romcom that zestily highlights the myriad growing pains and pleasures of an increasingly red-blooded young man's coming of age, rage and, well,...coming!!!! Granted, this ain't no Jules et Jim, but, hey!!! that would pretty weird if it was!

“I couldn't get it up if you were a pair of twins in a vat of Mazola oil!!!!”

 

Beach House (1982) – John Gallagher.

An appetizingly salty, enjoyably rough n' tumbled 80s beach comedy finds a likeable group of boisterous Brooklyn chuckleheads lusty beachside frolics being impinged upon by a buzz killing band of snarky party hearty Philly punkers. The bawdy scenarios are mostly fun, the appropriately noisome performances are energetic, as is the snappy, sounding Rock N' roll soundtrack. The low budget, appreciably high-spirited, hectically hedonistic, riotously Rabelaisian Beach House remains a boozy, bikini-blasted B-comedy that hits the buffoonery bullseye more often than it misses! Troma fans, Party Animals, King Fratters and connoisseurs of saucy seaside shenanigans are sure to dig it! Beach House is crude, lewd, and unashamedly silly, but I've had some of my best times being crude, lewd, and unashamedly silly! A not exactly nuenced beach comedy confection, but many of the beerier exchanges are legitimately mirthsome, the game gals are appropriately nubile, and the guys are amiably girl-gawking goofs!!! Beach House has additional kudos for me, as it stars deliciously dreamy scream queen Kathy 'House on Sorority Row' McNeil as the avidly Anthony-loving Cindy! YOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“I'll give you a Hawaiian punch if yous don't get out here!!!!!”

 

 

 

 

 Foolin' Around (1980) – Richard T. Heffron.

Heffron's charmingly bright and breezy sports comedy centres on a naïve country boy Wes's (Gary Busy) eager attempts to woo a sophisticated college coed Susan (Annette O'Toole) away from her snotty Ivy League fiancé Whitley (John Calvin). Alongside the two effervescing leads, Foolin' Around enjoys an exceptionally fine supporting cast with exemplary performances from Eddie Albert, Cloris Leachman, and a riotously funny turn from Tony 'Yes, madam!' Randall. Minnesota makes for a wholesome backdrop, and the quotable text, and agreeably bouncy score supply this charming 80s comedy with some additional warmly fuzzies. 

The film's sun-dappled, enjoyably screwballed cosy familiarity is manifestly part of its infectiously 'ain't life swell' rewatchability. The scintillatingly exquisite, dulcet-voiced Annette o'Toole is never less than a goddess throughout, Busey's toothsome affable lug routine was never less routine, and rarely as affable as his mishap prone, understandably besotted dope, Wes. It's rare to see a genuinely romantic comedy that is so consummately goofy, rather than unintentionally so. A tad more sedate, perhaps, Foolin' Around has a lively, roustabout Blake Edwardian quality that I still find enormously appealing!

  “Did all that Hot Dog stuff come out of his clothes?”

 

 

Banned From Broadcast 3: Stalker Hell.(2004) - Toshikazu Nagae.

A harassed young woman nervously agrees to have the increasingly distressing actions of her obsessive stalker recorded by hidden cameras in this especially unsettling episode of J-Horror FF gem Banned From Broadcast. What started as a series of phone calls very soon escalated to this man taking secret photos and final continues to outright harassment, repeatedly visiting her flat and banging threateningly on the door. It's quite unpleasant watching poor Nozomi suffer so terribly at the hands of this frenzied man. Near the end of the episode, the TV crew discover disturbing revelations about Nozomi's history, and her shadowy Stalker's true identity.

 

 Banned From Broadcast 1: (2003) - Toshikazu Nagae.

A TV crew investigate bizarre reports concerning the wholly unaccountable disappearance of 4 young people not long after they entered an abandoned, derelict building rumoured to be haunted. The TV team then eerily discover that a great number of people linked to this grim, doomily ill-omened building have also gone missing without a trace. Even more disturbing, the TV crew are themselves reported missing not long after interviewing a palpably disturbed, seemingly all-powerful psychic! Diabolical energy fields, malign parallel dimensions, ESP, and the UFO phenomena provide the esoteric grist for this divinely unsettling edition of 'Banned From Broadcast'. Each eerily compelling episode of this expressly vivid Japanese FF series focuses on a malevolent expression of horror too distressing for transmission. This sinister series opener remains an absolute must-see for avidly fear seeking J-Horror fans!

'An intelligently made, disturbingly realistic, bracingly outlandish descent into macabre supernatural FF terror!' - Mahnfahrt Panzerflesh.