Malibu Beach (1978) Robert J. Rosenthal.

Formulaic fleshy frolics by Crown International Pictures lustily presents a demographically aligned cross-section of hard-bodied, horn-dogging teenagers doing their utmost to consume as much pot, beer and pussy as humanly possible during their sultry, hormonally overloaded summer break. A sun-dazed dung beetle crawling his lugubrious way over a fresh roll of toilet paper could provide a more winning, shag-centric text, but as a vintage, nookie-nostalgic softwank, Malibu Beach is easy enough on the more prurient eye, if a tad 'too easy' on the cerebrum. Hey!!! It's a dumb ass 70s beach flick, the better dumb ass beach flicks feature beehived, hard-frugging 60s Go-Go dancers and cheapnis monsters, while Malibu Beach boasts studio sexy eye-candies Kim Lankford, James Daughton, Susan Player, and sherry Lee Marks. I'm not sure that I enjoyed this very much, I was hungover, but I certainly appreciated all the jiggly-tanned, bikini bits. I strongly refute the poster's spurious claim that 'everything can happen' on Malibu Beach, but I readily accept that a more truthful 'goofy shit happens' on Malibu Beach would be an advertising bummer. Truth be known, I preferred Rosenthal's earlier titty litter 'The Pom Pom Girls, but that's kinda like saying I rated one tepid cup of tap water over a moderately less tepid one.

 Mansion of The Living Dead (1985) – Jess Franco.

Like many dediated Franconians, some might share my especial fondness for his saucier works shot in, and around an exotically located hotel in a tropical locale (Gran Canaria), moistly focussing upon the hyper-sexual, explicitly lesbian exploits of saftig, frequently nude women. In this thrilling instance, four engagingly noisome burlesque dancers find their hotel eerily deserted, sombrely maintained by the no less vacant Antonio Mayans! Happily, this certainly doesn't deter these lively signorita's from their lusty bed-hoping, but it isn't all sun, sea and same-sex schtupping, as the bizarro concierge (Mayans) harbours an especially macabre secret! This mad, compellingly camp, deliciously schlocky admixture of bountiful girl-on-girl nookie and satanic zombie Templar knights also provides for some atmospheric, unexpectedly sinister digressions.

Muck maestro Franco is famously NOT stingy about lacing his fervid, ultra-cheapnis eroto-shockers with fabulously fulsome fleshly exploits, but he also effectively generates some palpable B-horror suspense, as our pulchritudinous, ill-fated protagonists are drawn fearfully into the malign shenanigans of these macabre monks. Mansion of The Living Dead is one of Jess Franco's many shunt-heavy 80s shockers to feature luridly lingeringly shots of his altogether majestic missus (Lina Romay), unselfconsciously roaming about the gaff in her immaculately sensuous birthday suit. Fans will already be aware of this maniacal Mansion's midnight movie mettle, but I'm equally convinced that it remains a worthwhile punt to any weirdo curious enough to venture a little further off Euro-horror's more well-trodden paths.

 German Angst (2015) - Buttgereit. Marshall. Kosakowski.

Like a great many other splatter mad hatters, I find the lurid lure of a grisly extreme-horror anthology hard to resist, and Teutonic terror trilogy German Angst proved darkly irresistible! Macabre Maestro Jorg Buttgereit's compellingly stark contribution, a glacial, surgically sharp dissection of a captivatingly strange young Fräulein's deservedly savage censure of a domestic abuser cuts pretty deep! Brutalist, gory, and inventively twisted, the bracingly confrontational portmanteau shocker German Angst remains a bravura, blut-basted blitzkrieg of sinister, ultra stylised Kraut-shock! The intense material herein provides for a thrillingly unconventional trip into coutured ultra-violence, psychosexual extremis, and stylised outré splatter. For all of its divinely nasty digressions, German Angst cannot completely disguise the palpable intelligence behind each of these cruelly cautionary tales. While all of the gifted filmmakers contributions have points of interest, for me, Buttgereit's sordid slice of skewed suburbia was the moist queasily memorable.

 Dirty Weekend (1992) – Michael Winner.

Kindly wallflower Bella (Lia Williams) transforms dramatically into Poison Ivy following a series of increasingly toxic encounters with predatory men in Michael Winner's brutal, yet often playful fatal female fantasy revenger Dirty Weekend. Watching the once timorous Tinkerbell's triumphal ascension to dominant, ice-cold Amazonian antagonist delivers a truly exhilarating cinematic experience. Dirty Weekend received a somewhat tepid reception upon its release, mostly due to critics expressing an ingrained prejudice against Mr. Winner's populist oeuvre. Like a long-neglected jug of moonshine, this confrontational 90s seaside shocker has aged disgracefully well, with all of its more intoxicating elements remaining resolutely undiminished. Bella is a vulnerable, altogether human, vividly drawn character, the jeopardy she unjustly endures feels unsettlingly authentic. The oppressive confrontations with her perverse, openly sadistic stalker (Rufus Sewell) appears terrifyingly genuine, her paralysing fear, and subsequent bloody catharsis remains absolutely thrilling to behold! Violent exploitation cinema only rarely has performances of this calibre, and the surprisingly nuanced text by Winner and novelist Helen Sahavi provides for a number of memorably striking scenarios. While there are missteps, for the most part, Dirty Weekend is a spirited, sure-footed, frequently suspenseful, darkly eroticized revenge thriller about an abused proletariat woman who courageously chooses to turn the tables on her misogynistic aggressors.

 Hansel & Gretel (1990) – Giovanni Simonelli.

Beautiful, ailing, morally bankrupt lady boss (Brigitte Christensen) has her lucrative trade in black market organ trafficking royally fubar'd after the kidnapping/slaughter of loveable tykes Hansel and Gretel yields the unexpectedly haunting results of postmortem vengeance! At this point, the boom in Italian horror was rapidly diminishing to bust, Filmirage was almost defunct, with Hansel & Gretel arguably providing one of the last theatrical examples of spaghetti splatter, as the small screen would later only provide fitful opportunities for genre icons Lamberto Bava and Lucio Fulci. Often blithely maligned, Hansel and Gretel is certainly not without modest interest to Euro-horror junkies, hardcore chunk-blowing it is emphatically not, but this whimsical supernatural yarn still contains trace elements of Italian horror's inventive, ragu-soaked supremacy.

If one is frequently told that the spooky kids modus operandi in Hansel and Gretel is goofy, then goofy it shall appear, but approached with unbiased eyes, this is a charming B-horror curiosity, replete with some nasty kills, an ear-wormingly kooky theme, a despicable Villainess, and two utterly adorbs, hugely sympathetic, wee vengeful ghosties. I genuinely adore this film, thus, my positive view is absolutely biased, but I'd like to be one that humbly suggests Hansel and Gretel is not quite the chronic absurdity so many have vociferously claimed it to be. Granted, the text is weak, and the film-making is often prosaic, but the premise remains sound, the bloody tractor kill is phooken awesome, and I believe there's room in the fairly sizeable horror pantheon of killer kids for fairy tale terror tykes Hansel and Gretel.

 Absolutio Erlosung Im Blut (2014) – Philip Lilienschwartz.

This pleasingly graphic Anti-Moby fever dream, gorily presents an insular, disturbingly sexless, shaven-headed Anti-Moby who undergoes a delirious, pseudo-religious epiphany following the death of his beloved mother. Galvanized to perpetrating puritan acts of arbitrary cruelty, Jesaja (Stefan Vancura) undertakes a grisly suburban crusade, kidnapping, and torture-monologue-slaying all those who he deems are heretically flouting god's commandments. Maniacal Mutti's boys are ubiquitous in Grindhouse horror, following in the fevered footsteps of the Templars, and Witch-finders of old, our demonstrably bland Anti-Moby gleefully kills for Christ, although to be pedantic, the overly mythologised Templar Knights favoured John the Baptist. As demented splatter antagonists go, nebbish Jesaja is a rampantly unlovable cove, but the plentiful practical FX prove both effective, and horribly gruesome. Humans have been killing humans to appease their blood-thirsty gods since time immemorial, so why should the nerks in chunk-blowers be any different. In truth, I prefer secular slayers like Frank Zito, or Madman Marz, but every now and again, I don't mind watching a hyped-up holy roller do the lord's work. I must commend Herr Vancura who portrays a proper skeevey douche valve, his limpid, anodyne performance proved unexpectedly compelling to me.

 Angel Enforcers (1989) – Godfrey Ho.

This notorious purveyor of crazed cut n' paste Ninja Brain-melt was also a more than credible director of dynamite Kung Fu epics, and hell-for-leather heroic bloodshed. With dazzlingly acrobatic fight scenes, red-lined vehicular mayhem and bravura, Berretta blasting bellicosity, Angel Enforcers remains an incendiary, bona fide Girl with Guns master-blaster! Maverick cops taking on nefarious dope/diamond/flesh peddling gangsters were ubiquitous during HK action's gloriously blood-soaked heyday, and the scintillating introduction of fearlessly fighting females proved altogether welcome. It was not uncommon for the violent death of an undercover cop, or brother gangster to galvanize the protagonist/antagonist to vengeful retaliation, in this instance it is the latter, but he soon discovers that he must contend with the resiliently pistol packing, Kung fu Queens known collectively as the Angel Enforcers! Like placing a coin in a pinball machine, right from the get-go, the kinetic battery proves relentless, fellow fans of the inspector wears skirts, Iron Angels, or Rothrock's iconic Lady Reporter, Angel Enforcers is an eminently rewatchable, oestrogen-powered, furiously femme fighting, nitrous-injected, heroine bloodshed classic!