New review time with the Turkish cult classic, Kilink in Istanbul, which was basically a rip-off of Diabolik, Kriminal, Killing or really any European comic-book character with a "K" in their name. Good fun and well worth checking out.
REVIEW
You can pick up the movie directly from Onar Films.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
New Review: Kilink Istanbul Da (Kilink in Istanbul)
Blue Underground: Women in Prison
Blue Underground have announced two new releases from the "Women in Prison" genre. I'm sure all you trashites will be picking these beauties up! Street date for both is May 30th.
Bare behind Bars (1980)
In a women's penitentiary where brutal beatings, steamy showers, and full cavity searches are the order of the day, the cons are turning into pros - and the cemetery is running out of room! To stay out of the torture chamber, the inmates can barter their bodies in the wicked warden's white slave trade, or submit to the nympho nurse's peculiar brand of medical malpractice. But when these lawless lovelies go on the lam to wreak vengeance on straight society, no one will be safe! Prolific purveyor of perversion Oswaldo De Oliveira's (AMAZON JAIL) piece de resistance is presented here in its X-Rated entirety. A cornucopia of comely convicts (including International beauty queen Marta Anderson of MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY and PERVERSION Scream Queen Nadia Destro) bare it all, as every frame of vicious violence, savage sexuality, and inappropriate use of pineapples, is presented pristine and intact for the first time ever in America!
Featuring: Maria Stella Splendore - Marta Anderson - Nadia Destro
Special Features: Theatrical Trailer.
Director: Oswaldo De Oliveira
Genre: Mature; Cult, Action/Adventure
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Widescreen, 16x9 Anamorphic
Region Code: 1
Rating: NOT RATED
Languages: English
Amazon Jail (1982)
From The Director Of BARE BEHIND BARS Deep in the Amazon jungle, a group of nubile na‹fs are trapped in a primitive prison by whip-cracking white slavers who aren't above sampling the merchandise themselves. But these hothouse flowers aren't about to be plucked, and the girls go native - only to fall into the hands of a perverted priest whose followers just love a woman in war paint! Caught between brutal bounty hunters and the holy man's horny henchmen, it's a battle of wits, weapons, and feminine wiles as the desperate damsels trade it all to escape this poison paradise alive! Director Oswaldo De Oliveira (BARE BEHIND BARS) brings us this exotic twist on the woman-in-prison genre, with salacious sleazeballs Sergio Hingst (AWAKENING OF THE BEAST) and Joao Paulo Ramalho (PERVERSION, HELLISH FLESH) pursuing some of Brazil's sexiest starlets through scene after scene of primal passion and sadistic violence, culminating in an all-out orgy deep in the deadly Green Inferno.
Featuring: Elizabeth Hartmann, Mauricio Do Valle, Sergio Hingst
Special Features: Theatrical Trailer.
Director: Oswaldo De Oliveira
Genre: Mature; Cult, Action/Adventure
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Widescreen, 16x9 Anamorphic
Region Code: 1
Rating: NOT RATED
Languages: English
RIP: Darren McGavin
The Nightstalker himself, Darren McGavin passed away over the weekend. He will be fondly remembered as Carl Kolchak from the TV show "Kolchak: The Nightstalker" but most of all for me as the kindly dad from "A Christmas Story", truly the best and most heartwarming Christmas films of all time.
Source: Darren McGavin.net
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Lamberto Bava goes Pop - Diabolik Style
Lamberto Bava has directed a music video for Italian pop group Tiromancino very much in the style of Diabolik, so much so that Diabolik himself John Philip Law is in the video with a small cameo. Also stars Dan McVicar as Diabolik and the lovely Claudia Gerini as Eva Kant.
Check it out!
Friday, February 17, 2006
Euro Horror on the Big Screen: A Disappointment!
It was with great expectation that I headed off to Glasgow's only Arthouse cinema, the GFT on Tuesday night to see their presentation of "The Night Evelyn came out the Grave". A trashy cult Euro classic directed by Emilio Miraglia, one that I've avoided picking up on DVD due to NoShame's imminent Killer Queen Box Set. It was to be something very different this Valentines Day, different being an understatement!
To my surprise the cinema was more or less full, a virtual sell out. I was impressed that word had got out about this being shown. The ads came to an end and it was then I noticed the projector on the ceiling and I sat wondering when that was ever used. I was about to find out.
Perhaps naively, I thought they might have acquired a print of the film from Italy, but no it seemed they had decided to use either the diabolical Sinema Diablo or Eclectic DVD releases, both equally horrendous looking enough on regular Tv's but even worse blown up via a projector. I'm sure a member of the audience could have supplied a better DVD from their own collections. More pain was heaped upon us though as my brother said:
"Are you sure this is in Italian?"; Hilarious English dubbing ensued!
However, the audience took this in good humour and this spooky giallo became an unintentional comedy with hilarity in all the wrong places. I'm sure rewatching this next month on the pristine I'm sure print from NoShame in Italian will result in a better experience, but I'll never forget my first Emilio Miraglia film on the big screen!
Friday, February 10, 2006
Basic Instinct 2: Full Trailer Available
The full official trailer is now online.
You can download it directly from here.
Thanks to Daves Trailer Page for the info.
Blue Underground: Castellari Cover Art!
Cover art for the upcoming Enzo Castellari DVD's released on April 25th:
Street Law:
The Big Racket:
The Heroin Busters:
Link to a previous post discussing the DVD's in detail.
No Shame come up trumps again! Emilio Miraglia Killer Queen Boxset
Check out this cracking Limited Edition Emilio Miraglia Killer Queen Boxset that will contain "THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE" (1971), "THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES" (1972) plus a Red Queen action figure.
Get this pre-ordered as soon as possible Trashites, No Shame have delivered once again!
"2-DVD Limited Edition Collector's Edition ONLY 7000 available, all individually numbered Including the Red Queen action figure
Crumbling castles... ancient curses... spooky family portraits... skeletons in the closet... asylums... knives... bloodshed… and rats, rats rats! Welcome to the twisted mind of Emilio P. Miraglia, writer-director of two of the most mindbending psycho-sexual thrillers of the Italian giallo cycle.
THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE (1971): Anthony Steffen (DJANGO THE BASTARD) stars as an English aristocrat who grieves over the death of his perfidious wife Evelyn by bringing home a string of red-headed prostitutes and striptease artists (including KILL, BABY... KILL's Erika Blanc), none of whom are ever seen again. When he remarries, this time to a gorgeous blond (Marina Malfatti), strange apparitions, midnight slayings, and an empty tomb suggest that Evelyn has come back to voice her displeasure. Is madness or murder the soul of the plot… and who will live to know the truth?
THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES (1972): Guilt over the accidental death of their sister Evelyn binds siblings Francesca (Marina Malfatti) and Kitty (DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING’s Barbara Bouchet). When the girls inherit their family castle, a string of savage murders decimates their circle of friends, associates and lovers… murders committed by a dark-haired woman in a blood-red cloak. Is it the work of their ancestor, the “Red Queen” whom legend says claims seven lives every hundred years… or could it be their dead sister Evelyn, back from her watery grave to exact a terrible revenge?
Pity those who saw these two hallucinogenic giallo gems via scratched drive-in prints or panned-and-scanned bootleg video cassettes. NoShame Films proudly presents these genre masterpieces in their original widescreen aspect ratios, in full bloody color, both backed by classic EuroCult scores by Bruno Nicolai (CASE OF THE SCORPION’S TAIL)."
EXTRAS:
THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE
• Introduction by star Erica Blanc (aka Erika Blanc)
• The Whip and the Body – Interview with star Erica Blanc (aka Erika Blanc)
• Still Rising from the Grave – Interview with production designer Lorenzo Baraldi
THE RED QUEEN KILLS 7 TIMES
• Introduction by production designer Lorenzo Baraldi
• Dead à porter – Interview with production designer Lorenzo Baraldi
• Round Up the Usual Suspects – Interview with actor Marino Masé
• If I Met Emilio Miraglia Today… – Feauturing Erica Blanc (aka Erika Blanc), Lorenzo Baraldi, Marino Masé
• My Favorite... Films - Interview with star Barbara Bouchet
• Alternative Opening
• Poster and Still Gallery
Source: NoShame
Monday, February 06, 2006
Trailer: Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction
This looks like exploitative movie trash central; Can't wait to see it then!
Check out the UNCUT trailer (NSFW) at WWTDD.com before it's probably taken down: WWTDD
Friday, February 03, 2006
Italian B-Movies: Tarantino's Inspiration
Really interesting article from the Independent about Tarantino's influences and love for Italian B-Movies and in particular Fernando di Leo.
Italian B-movies: Tarantino's inspiration
Cheap, lurid, ultra-violent, garish and exploitative, the Italian B-movies that inspired 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Kill Bill' are now soaring out of critical obscurity.
By Geoffrey Macnab
Blame Quentin Tarantino. In the 1980s, when the future director of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill was still a humble assistant in a Santa Monica video store, he stumbled on some films by the Italian B director, Fernando Di Leo.
By then, Di Leo was one of the forgotten figures of Italian cinema. His thrillers of the early 1970s had slipped into obscurity and his career had ground to an untimely halt. It was sheer chance that Tarantino discovered his work, but it inspired him to try to become a filmmaker himself.
"One of the first films I watched was pivotal to my choice of profession. It was I Padroni della Città (Mister Scarface). I had never even heard the name Fernando Di Leo before. I just remember that after watching that film I was totally hooked," Tarantino recently recalled. "I became obsessed and started systematically watching other films directed by Di Leo. I owe so much to Fernando in terms of passion and filmmaking".
Di Leo's films are B movies par excellence: garish, intricately plotted, ultra-violent stories about pimps and petty gangsters, told with plenty of attitude. There is an intensity and formal ingenuity here that you rarely find in more prestigious (and expensive) pictures.
Take the beginning of Di Leo's Milan Calibre 9 (1972), in which we see a bag containing $300,000 belonging to local Mr Big "the Americano" whisked across Milan. Somehow, as couriers dart in and out of subways and across busy streets, the bag is switched and the money stolen.
This bravura sequence is shot almost entirely without dialogue. Nor do we need any lengthy speeches to explain what is happening as the Americano's vengeful henchmen track down the couriers, truss them together and blow them up with a few sticks of dynamite.
Di Leo's La Mala Ordina (Manhunt), also made in 1972, offers some early models for the wisecracking, laconic hitmen played by John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction. US actors Woody Strode and Henry Silva are the New York killers dispatched to Italy to dispose small-time pimp Luca Canali (Mario Adorf.) Like Travolta and Jackson, they're assassins with style and deadpan humour.
The Di Leo movies form the centrepiece of "The Secret History of Italian Cinema," a season of films being shown throughout January and early February at Tate Modern. The retrospective comes to London from the Venice Film Festival, where it provoked huge controversy last autumn. "I was accused by a lot of Italian critics of having lost any sense of the institutions by opening the gates of the festival to trash cinema," says Venice Festival director Marco Muller.
Until recently, Muller points out, the work of filmmakers such as Di Leo was regarded with disdain in Italy. Their films were far more readily available in the UK and US than in Italy.
"Italian audiences think these are bad movies, cheap movies," acknowledges Germano Celant, artistic director of the Prada Foundation (which backed the restoration of films at the Tate.)
It didn't help that Di Leo had slipped out of public consciousness by his death in 2003. But the disappearance shouldn't have taken anyone by surprise. Every film culture has its hidden gems that only outsiders seem to value. In Britain, Hammer horror movies by Terence Fisher and John Gilling are dismissed by local critics as exploitation fodder, but championed as masterpieces by Martin Scorsese. As Scorsese has pointed out, one of the paradoxes about B-movies is that they "are freer and more conducive to experimenting and innovating" than A-pictures.
Muller argues that Di Leo's gangster films offer a far more accurate picture of Italy than documentaries or big-budget feature films of the period. "If you really want to understand the Italy of the 1970s, with political extremism on both left and right as a response to the corruption and the Mafia infiltration in all the centres of political and financial power, look to Di Leo."
Di Leo's films may have been conceived as exploitation pics, but they deal with social and political issues. "I wanted to demonstrate the reality of the degrading of the working class on the outskirts of a major city, where organised criminality was starting to spread its first tentacles, and where the youth had not yet entered this vicious circle," the director commented on his debut feature Naked Violence (1969).
This is lurid and distasteful fare. It opens in horrendous fashion with the sexual assault and murder of a night-school teacher, but Di Leo's shock tactics are deceptive. It becomes apparent that the director's real purpose is to explore the world of the misfit kids accused of the murder.
In their battle to rehabilitate Di Leo and his colleagues, Muller and Celant had one key ally: Tarantino. The director came to Venice to introduce the movies.
"I needed Quentin. I knew he would be very loud as a spokesman for Italian B movies," Muller recalls. At the festival, Tarantino's crusading zeal and sheer force of personality helped win round older critics to the idea that the low-budget films made in their backyard in the Seventies were worth reviving. Meanwhile, younger audiences turned up in their droves, curious to see films that had had such a direct influence on Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction.
For the organisers of the Tate retrospective, which reclaims the films as Pop Art, this is simply a case of art historians and critics belatedly waking up to work that has been overlooked for too long.
As Germano Celant points out, Tate Modern is also currently hosting an exhibition of the work of the French painter (and former customs officer), Henri Rousseau.
"Look at Rousseau. He was a B artist at the beginning, copying from postcards and newspaper reproductions. Nobody liked him at the beginning, but now you read him in a completely different way."
Fondazione Prada presents 'Italian Kings of the B's: Secret History of Italian Cinema 1949-81', Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888, www.tate.org.uk/modern) to 10 February
Source: The Independent
I urge you all to check out Milano Calibro 9, a fantastic film and a great introduction into the world of Fernando di Leo.
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