Women's Flesh: My Red Guts (1999) – Tamakichi Anaru.

With a grisly title like Women's Flesh: My Red Guts you can be damn sure it's NOT going to be about some chinless Hippie melt talking about the rejuvenating benefits of a macrobiotic diet, with madman Anaru at the helm, shit's gonna get real asap!!!! Following the anguish of a break-up, a profoundly depressed young woman (Ayaha Tomozawa) begins a sick regimen of brutalizing self-harm, commencing with wholly injudicious usages of a toothbrush, and escalating to sharper objects better suited for more efficient pain-inducing. Ruthlessly vicious, there's a surrealistic aesthetic to this poor tormented woman's savage destruction. Women's Flesh: My Red Guts is disturbingly voyeuristic, while it is distressing to blithely witness such a beautiful young woman destroy herself so gruesomely, for better, or worse, at no point was I compelled to do anything more than keep watching to the exceedingly bitter end!!! Some may well feel differently, but I believe Anaru's macabre cinema has a transgressive quality, visceral, and fucking nasty, the bloody grossness proves morbidly compelling. Low-fi S.O.V J-Splatter nihilism at its very finest! Lots and lots of lovely bloody knife licky-licky too!!

 The New Rose Hotel (1998) – Abel Ferrara.

Two conniving hoods orchestrate an old school honey trap (Asia Argento) to parlay lofty bio-tech billionaire Hiroshi(Yoshitaka Amano) for an equally lofty 100 million large, and things turn fatally south in Ferrara's exhilarating 90s cyber noir classic New Rose Hotel. While the quotient of ballistic violence is unusually restrained for Ferrara, The New Rose Hotel is a hugely atmospheric tech-nor thriller with exemplary performances, a midnight-moody score, and scintillating sequences of electrifying eroticism throughout! Not unduly hampered by its modest budget, notably gritty NY film-maker Ferrara ably constructs a cerebral, consistently robust futurist thriller that excitingly maintains its fascination, from acting maestro Christopher Walken's flamboyant intro, until the bleak, raven dark, emotionally complex finale. It will have been noted MANY times before, while the film remains a taut ensemble piece, Christopher Walken's openly adrenalin-craving, charismatically philosophical con man puts his nefarious gifts to quicksilver use, and effectively steals the entire film! As a long-time fan of 40s/50s film-noir, with its stark chiaroscuro photography, emblematically smoky sin sirens, desperately doomed lovers, and cruelly thwarted schemes, The New Rose Rose Hotel remains a blazingly authentic revisionist crime thriller, that I am sure shall only improve with time.

And God Created Woman. (1988) – Roger Vadim.

A mostly fatuous 80s remake by Vadim. Langella looks a little embarrassed being there, Spano is clearly happy to be anywhere, and De Mornay is WAY too Godlike a woman to be there.

 Tumbling Doll of Flesh (1998) – Tamakichi Anaru.

'You have a cute anus!'

Spectacularly gory, sordid, and bracingly nihilistic, Tamakichi Anaru's infamously sicko Tumbling Doll of Flesh remains a deliciously psychotic fever dream of hyper-visceral S.O.V grimness. Before I continue, I'd just like to highlight a wee snippet of expository dialogue, if I may. 'We will start with normal sex scenes, and then we will do some S&M.' 'Ok!!!!' Call me Billy Basic, but I'm always mustard keen to see if anything occurs following the S&M scenes, since there's quite frequently some genuinely juicy content after the S&M/rope bondage scenes, and by Jove!!!!! Tumbling Doll of Flesh manifestly doesn't skimp on the bodacious WTFuckery!!!! Many of the more nakedly sadistic examples of batso J-splatter are frequently set upon low-fi, grungy-looking porno shoots, wherein standard pixelated in-out, culminates brutally in a raging tsunami of graphically rendered ultra-violence. Hey!!! if it 'ain't broke, guy!!!! I understand many fans of this macabre material have an especially acute appreciation for the noisome reactions of its female protagonists, and the tantalisingly tumbling terror doll Kana (Hanako Ooba) certainly delivers!!!! In this uncompromisingly cruel arena coitus is merely the appetising prelude to brutalising squalls of hardcore eroticized carnage.

The Burning Baby (2020) – Paul Kindersley.

Eerily set within an isolated, breathtakingly picturesque Scottish island, the director presents a colourfully twisted family unit, a deliciously mentalist matriarch (Jenny Runacre), two wickedly twisted sisters, and a man-sized, blithely mistreated, allegedly two year old baby. While narratively oblique, this terrifically tweaked, visually sumptuous psychodrama is a playfully idiosyncratic, strangely erotic, occasionally maddeningly obscure folk horror-inflected psychodrama. If artistes Ken Russell, George Kuchar, and Alistair Crowley had performed a prohibited magick ritual that had manifested a mystic-fleshly Burning Baby, should it have waxed to its 2 year old maturity, it may well have created a work not entirely dissimilar to this winning kaleidoscope of freaked-out Freudian misanthropy! The giddy film's greatest strengths reside in its eccentricity, lunatic couture, patent cruelty, scenes of outre erotica, and frequently skewed flights into delirious phantasmagoria!

Some of The Burning Baby's most arresting sequences are non-verbal, the sublime silhouetted scenes of these misfit nymphs cavorting rapturously in the trees, their orgiastic dancing, and crying out in staccato alien tongues proved undeniably fabulous. I think it is entirely fair to say that The Burning Baby is more of a freakishly far-flung fable than standard cookie-cutter shocker. That being said, it has a frustratingly meandering quality, which dilutes the more visually striking interludes. The painterly photography is absolutely exquisite, the hyper-real personalities are energetically performed, with the stunning sound design/score providing an additional highlight. Like marmite on raisin bagels, or stinky wee fishies on Hawaiian pizzas, for all its creativity, The Burning Baby's appeal is arguably not universal.

 French Blood 1: Mr Pig (2020) – Rodolphe Bonnet.

Splendidly gory French anthology horror, expect gratuitous splatter, naked, hard-bodied French hotties, refried horror tropes, and bloody eviscerations, all atmospherically rendered with a modicum of Gallic style. An exhilarating, super-grisly pick n' mix of gnarly, graphic splatter-a-rama with some heavy 80s backwoods slasher/torture porn vibes, plus a generosity of tantalisingly trim poonany!!! French Blood 1: Mr. Pig is a stylish confection of eroticized ultra-violence, bejewelled with a distractingly beauteous bevvy of nubile young women. I think it's fair to say some of the terror themes herein are familiar, but there's a tendency towards raven black humour that I really enjoyed. Performances and technical elements are top-notch, and some of the butchery is satisfyingly meaty. If I had to choose a favourite bit, it would manifestly be the mean-spirited backwoods slasher homage, being a winning melange of Mother's Day and TCM, but, as a personal preference, I wish they had eased up a tad on the shaky-cam. I dug this, and I am quite keen to see part II.

 Death Metal Zombies (1995) – Todd Jason Cook.

The party-heartay lives of a group of amiable suburban metalheads suddenly takes a super sinister turn when Living Corpse fanatic Brad (Bill DeWilde) wins a special tape from his beloved band, and upon excitedly listening to the bespoke track 'zombified', they become malevolently murderous, dead-eyed minions of this evilly metal minion-making death metal outfit. The righteous Death Metal Zombies boisterously remains an entertaining, gore-blasted S.O.V 90s chunkblower that should prove essential to splatter craving, D.I.Y horror-loving extreme metal freaks. The Splatter FX are rudimentary and generously Tomato Ketchupy, while the maniacal minions make-up is rather basic, a thick daubing of Kohl around the boggling eyes, I actually found it strangely effective. While lacking finesse, Death Metal Zombies proved unexpectedly winning, the excitable amateur performances actually add to the no-budget feature's enormous appeal. There are many more explicit metal-inflected S.O.V horror films, I believe Death Metal Zombies is arguably the heaviest, featuring a mind-melting mix of Relapse bands delivering a constant barrage of heavy riffage throughout. I tend to favour heavy metal horrors, and happily the 80s provided a number of choice hair-metalled splatter classics, with the veritable apex of 90s metallic horror being absolute banger Death Metal Zombies. In closing, not only do I heartily approve of the director's energizing choice of music, his decision to have his lively blonde heroine jolly herself about in a pair of snug black short-shorts proved astute.

 Satan Lives! The Rise of The Illuminati Hotties ( 2022 ) - Sean Donohue.

'We have to remove his face to complete the death ceremony!'

Aye! I'm unashamedly part of the downer demographic that will happily watch a sleazy horror cheapnis solely based upon the rapacious luridity of the title! Satan Lives! The Rise of The Illuminati Hotties had me at Satan Lives! And I allowed myself to be lured by the alleged hotness of the said illuminated hotties! While I don't believe Satan would be very much impressed, the more debased consumers of smutty low-fi S.O.V Satanic Panic might get a skeevey kick out of this sticky cauldron of sordid sluts, dingy douche-bags, octogenarian occultists, refried cheesy synths, gut-bucket gore, pole-dancing vixens, goofball interludes, and an admirable lack of sophistication. That being said, who needs cinematic smarts when y'all have such a pulchritudinous preponderance of nude, enticingly jiggle-some Illuminati hotties!!!! This torrid, micro-budgeted, big busted, skuzzily shot on video fromage to Russ Meyer, and Ted V. Mikels is a raunchy one-stop-shop for grab-ass, Neo-Grindhouse slop!!! What fundamentally prevents Satan Lives! The Rise of The Illuminati Hotties from being a freezer bag full of reeking lipo-waste is the deliciously buxom, beautifully bottomed assassin Patricia (Jessa Flux)!!!!!!

 The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals (1969)- Oliver Drake.

'Day of the Jackal(Man)'

Archaeologist David Barrie (Anthony Eisley) takes possession of a pair of Egyptian Sarcophagi, and during his subsequent researches, the 4,000 yr-old princess Akana (Marliza Pons) awakens, followed by guardian mummy Sirahk (Saul Goldsmith), and via ritualized B-Movie hocus pocus, Barrie is horribly transformed into JACKAL-MAN, culminating in an enjoyable tumult of next-level bonkers Creature Feature shenanigans. Extraordinarily, The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals is even better than it sounds, a divinely trashy B-movie bonanza of psychotronic lunacy, excruciating dialogue, hep-cat music cues, monochromatic acting, and a deeply entrenched atmosphere of beguiling silliness. I can easily imagine that The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals would have made a perfect date night flick for psychobilly heroes Poison Ivy & Lux Interior! If one took the more gonzo ingredients of Drive-In demi-gods Ray Dennis Steckler and H.G Lewis, back-peddled on the gore, but double-downed on the bizarro music choices, you may well have Frankenstein'd something truly extraordinary like The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals. While it is always the fans that make a B-movie cult, it wouldn't surprise me at all if The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals became a go-to mind-bender in the none-to distant future. Expressing a personal preference, this sublime freak-fest would make an exquisite pairing with Andy Milligan's The Rats are coming! The Werewolves are here!

 Vampires and Other stereotypes (1994) – Kevin J. Lindenmuth.

During a night patrol in NYC, our pair of querulous metropolitan spook-hunters, while doing their heroic duty keeping all the devil boogers at bay, end up in the noisome company of hottie, would-be ravers who have inadvertently opened up a gateway to the netherworld! On paper Vampires and Other Stereotypes sounds goofy, and experienced on HD video, it IS majorly goofy, but gloriously goofy in all the best ways! Like Nightbeast before it, micro-budget impresario Lindenmuth's cheapnis monster-mash Vampires and Other Stereotypes offers rabid S.O.V freaks a bloody smorgasbord of psychotronic terror tropes, cornball badinage, kooky tangents, and some objectively righteous-looking practical FX! No doubt preaching to the perverted, Vampires and Other Stereotypes demographic are arguably those weaned on a lifetime of fromage enriched B-horrors, neophyte schlockers who stayed up past their bedtime and excitedly watched all the scratchy midnight monster movies of old. While Vampires and Other Stereotypes is inevitably hampered by a low budget, it is absolutely watchable, since it remains a winning example of a creative film-maker utilizing his enthusiasm, and prodigious imagination to successfully visualize his project far beyond his meagre financial means. I must also once again congratulate Visual Vengeance for putting together an exceptionally handsome-looking package, featuring the exuberant, wonderfully entertaining 8mm shorts of precocious teenaged fright-maker Lindenmuth.

 Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation. (2009) – Mike Watt.

'I can't believe I ate the whole thing??!!!'

Things go supernaturally askew during some boozy sorority shenanigans at a local bowling alley hang-out, as the sultry owners of the joint get their demon on! Having a lurid moniker like Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation, no one is going to expect nuanced film-making on the level of Bela Tarr, or Andrezj Zulawski, and with a slinky-malinky cast of bouncy B-screamers, including icons Brinke Stevens and dishy Debbie Rochon, one may expect plentiful top-popping, smutty banter, and righteous levels of schlocky splatter-a-rama-ding-dong! I think that it is entirely fair to say that this is one horned-up horror-com that will encourage the more excitable members of the audience to give their balls a vigorous polish! Mean Girls spliced with Gutterballs, all smothered in the pungent aroma of Troma and y'all get the unholy spawning of Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation. This is a fun n' frisky B-Horror ride, expect quality buffoonery, sparky badinage, and a goofy gore-blasted climax! Taffy (Sofiya Smirnova) and her bestie Lisa (Nikki McCrae) are likeable, wholly sympathetic protagonists, and I also massively dug on the deliciously demonic antagonists, making this, pretty much, a win-win deal. Demon Divas and The Lanes of Damnation is light on T&A, but it gets a pass, since it is a genuinely funny, playful, consistently entertaining B-Horror lark!