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Entries tagged with 'Cult'
Posted Jun. 17, 2008,
Simon, King of the Witches!
By Dennis Dermody
Some movies are deserving of cult status. Simon, King of the Witches, out on DVD next week, is definitely one of them -- and then some. This oddball 1971 film is about a warlock named Simon (Andrew Prine) who lives in a storm drain and is dragged into the spotlight by a young hustler (George Paulsin) and egged on into using his evil powers against a disbeliever, which ends up coming back to haunt him. Set during the hippie/love/cult era, Prine makes a shambling, long-haired, hipster warlock. Warhol favorite Ultra Violet shows up later as a witch too in this psychedelic, strange film. Directed by Bruce Kessler (The Gay Deceivers), Prine himself talks about the making of the film in a revealing featurette. He claims the screenwriter was a warlock who had his own coven. Simon is a bizarre film because it doesn’t fit into any category -- and that’s part of its great charm. And Prine really is fabulous as Simon. He makes you believe all the nuttiness. The DVD quality is also extraordinary. I could finally throw away my old VHS. It’s even got nine extra minutes of footage. And more Simon, King of the Witches is just fine with me!
Posted Nov. 8, 2007,
Two Rare Lucio Fulci DVDs!
By Dennis Dermody
The late great Italian director Lucio Fulci was responsible for the most memorably macabre and grizzly horror movies ever made: The Beyond, Gates of Hell, The House by the Cemetery, Zombie, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, and now, thanks to Severin Films, two rare fascinating early Fulci films are now available on DVD.
The Psychic (aka Seven Notes in Black) (1972) stars beautiful Jennifer O'Neill who has psychic visions of a woman buried alive. More of a thriller, it's elegant and creepy and just wonderful. The Eroticist (1972) is a ribald political satire of a senator (Lando Buzzanca) who can't resist grabbing women's butts in public. So he tries for a cure at a remote monastery filled with luscious nuns which turns out to be a big mistake. Both films look gorgeous on DVD.
Posted Nov. 2, 2007,
Sexy-Crazy Filipino Movie: Silip!
By Dennis Dermody
One of the looniest films to come from the wonderful DVD company Mondo Macabro is this crackpot 1986 film, Silip: Daughters of Eve. When Imelda Marcos was ruling in the Philippines, her dream of creating a film festival center caused her to ease up on censorship in the movies. Filmmakers could create "bold" movies -- which meant a combination of sex and melodramas with a little bit of hardcore thrown in. These films could be taxed by the government and the money went towards Imedla's dream project.
Silip was one of these films. It's set in a seaside, salt-mining village where former Miss Philippines Maria Isabel Lopez stars as a horny but violently religious woman who lusts for the town stud but suddenly, when her cosmopolitan and sexually liberated sister shows up and goes after him, the fireworks begin. Lots of nudity and Catholic guilt, not to mention beheadings and mob hysteria, and you've got yourself one bizarre, insane, cinematic experience. There's a second disc with interviews with the director and a marvelous interview with Maria Isabel Lopez, who defends her sexy movie roles with disarming frankness.
Posted Sep. 6, 2007,
Horrors of Malformed Men!
By Dennis Dermody
It's finally here! A movie that has been banned for years that I've only ready about -- Teruo Ishii's Horrors of Malformed Men is finally out on DVD (http://www.synapse-films.com/). Based on stories by legendary Japanese horror fiction author Edogawa Rampo, it's about an imprisoned medical student, whose has repeated weird dreams about a strange island enclave. He escapes and pretends to be a dead man so he can be taken to his father (a mysterious doctor)'s island, where the doc has been doing unspeakable experiments on people and transforming them into misshapen monsters.
Posted Aug. 28, 2007,
Blind Woman's Curse
By Dennis Dermody
Watched one of the most bizarre, wildest, Japanese 1970s exploitation cult classic last night: Blind Woman's Curse (www.discotekmedia.com). It stars Quentin Tarantino favorite Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Female Convict Scorpion) as a crime boss who has to defend her clan from a vengeful blind swordswoman. But there are all these crackpot horror elements thrown in -- a freakshow carnival, a creepy hunchback, girls skinned alive, a blood-drinking cat, an opium den filled with naked prostitutes and lots of blood-spraying sword battles. Directed by the notorious Teruo Ishi (Female Yakuza Tale, Horror of Malformed Men), it's macabre and madly entertaining.