Enter the ADVANTAGE COLLECTION – EASTERN MOVIE (10 Film Set). BCI released it but the damn thing was about as easy to find as a condom in Shirpa Lane’s boudoir. Whether it was printed as a short run release or fans just weren’t willing to give up their own sets I have no idea but I wasn’t willing to pay $120. As bad as I wanted those goddamn films I just couldn’t do it. Thankfully a kindly gentleman over at the Wildside forums parted with this set and the CRYPT OF TERROR – HORROR FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER VOL. 1 for an ungodly miniscule amount.

The first thing I did upon receiving the Eastern films was to immediately begin watching them and, like any good HK cinema fan, I went for the luridly titled, CORPSE MASTER, figuring I’d get something similar to the Shaw Bros. production, CORPSE MANIA. *sigh* Not only was CORPSE MASTER not similar to CORPSE MANIA, the actual title of the film is MAGIC STORY and it was far from lurid. Instead of nudity, sex and gore, I got a cute lil’ Jiang Shi named Ding-Dong (Siu Kei-Kei) and his mildly humorous adventure amongst the living.

Seems the sprout hopped away from his coffin, leaving his concerned monster parents worried and searching for him. During his travels he happens upon some kind villagers who attempt to hide him from a corrupt police force in cahoots with a scheming Taoist priest and his supernatural minions. Will Ding-Dong’s parents find him before the priest enslaves him and all hope is lost?

Like you fucking care! Ha! Seriously, it was boring as hell and a major disappointment but this is the perfect flick for those horror dads looking for a PG production to introduce their children to Asian horror. MAGIC STORY is good, clean fun for the entire family…well…not my family…we want that nudity, sex and gore, damn it! You can actually purchase the Joy Sales VCD of this film thru YesAsia for about $7 but I’m not sure why in the hell you’d do that.

VHS Artwork

If somebody came up to you and started describing a sci-fi film where people plug themselves in to a virtual reality through inputs located on the back of their neck, but then followed that up by saying that it wasn’t The Matrix then you’d probably think that it was some sort of bad riddle. In retrospect, it probably is in a way but a little film called Mindwarp used this concept seven years before The Matrix did. While Mindwarp isn’t nearly as flashy or anywhere near the same category of success as The Matrix (or as good), it can probably pass for one of those sci-fi films you catch sporadically during a fit of insomnia while flipping through channels during the infancy of the day and enjoying more than you thought you would.

The similarities to Total Recall will make themselves apparent right away, but Mindwarp doesn’t take long to throw you into a post-apocalyptic world you’d expect to see The Road Warrior loitering around looking for an opportunity to relish what was thought to be a dried up natural resource. While Mindwarp can be considered a sci-fi film on the surface, it’s most likely a horror film at its roots and that becomes apparent as soon as you realize who’s a part of the cast. Bruce “don’t call me Ash” Campbell plays the love interest for Marta Martin’s Judy while The Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm, portrays the villainous Seer. While the uniting of these two actors in one film is exciting to horror fans, aficionados may be disappointed when they realize that both Campbell and Scrimm basically have glorified cameos in the film. Neither of their parts seem very large once the film ends, but at least you get to see Campbell get infested by leeches and basically no-sell throwing up his intestines.

Mindwarp is gloriously grotesque, as well. It doesn’t even try to shy away from blood or gore, which is fantastic for bloodthirsty horror fans. A perfect example is the meat grinding device the Seer uses as punishment to individuals who disobey him. The device is made from parts you’d find in a garbage dump along with a plethora of human skulls. After the unfortunate victim goes through the machine, their blood is spewed into a bathtub where the Crawlers, a deformed cannibalistic civilization that lives underground, drink the victim’s blood. But with all the comparisons to horror come many of the same downfalls many films of the genre have. Mindwarp was made in the early 90′s and the leftover cheese from the 80′s makes its way into the film practically effortlessly. That means the few attempts at humor in the film will probably make you verbally groan. The acting is also over the top, Campbell and Scrimm have their moments but the wild card is Marta Martin. Her acting is really terrible early on in the film, but slowly gets more tolerable as the film progresses.

Although you’d probably expect more from a film starring legendary horror icons Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm, Mindwarp blends the horror, sci-fi, and thriller genres fairly well. The film still has enough cheese injected into it to make it feel like it was made in the eighties; when horror films were at their peak. So while the acting sometimes leaves something to be desired, the concept is surprisingly great and would even go on to influence sci-fi films you’re probably more familiar with like The Matrix. Mindwarp is half Mad Max and half The Hills Have Eyes with a little bit of Total Recall thrown in for good measure. This quirky, blood-soaked post-apocalyptic gem is worth unearthing if you’re a hardcore fan of horror or sci-fi cinema.

Born in a bad year and month, on a bad day and time, Alan Chang finds himself plagued by disturbing ghostly encounters. Local medium Lady Luck informs his family that he must dig up the bodies of two spirits in particular and bring them to Thailand where they can be reunited in death in order to end the nasty mojo afflicting him. During his trip abroad, Alan hooks up with the sister of one of the deceased and a short love affair ensues. Agreeing to return to his lover in three months time, he heads back to his family in Hong Kong and gets on with his life. When three months come and go without a trip back to Thailand, Alan once again begins experiencing strange occurrences but this time it’s no mere haunting, it’s the blackest of black magic…BLACK DEATH BLACK MAGIC!

Creepy ghosts, a jilted lover, black magic, worms, blood and dueling magicians! It’s time to fall in love with HK cinema all over again!

When fellow cinemaphile and sleaze peddler Jack J over at Backyard Asia recommended this film, I assumed I’d get the usual over-the-top grue and titillating nudity typically associated with HK black magic films. Surprisingly enough though once I actually dove into the film I discovered that it was quite the opposite, there was no gore and only a few hints of skin. If you’re feeling a bit let down about now, don’t. What Brutal Sorcery lacks in sleaze it makes up for with a poster/VHS artwork “inspired” by Argento’s Inferno, a hilariously entertaining English dub and a score blatantly stolen from 1980′s Flash Gordon starring Max von Sydow and Timothy Dalton. Trash cinema gold.

If you’re on a quest, as I am, to see each and every HK genre film you can get your hands on, then you’ll need to see Brutal Sorcery for your own satisfaction. Keep in mind that while there is a story, it’s not an incredibly complex or original one and there’s no happy end for optimistic viewers. This is more “cautionary tale” than “unhinged sleaze-fest” and it definitely could have used more of Chan Lee Lee’s huge tits but it does succeed in mildly entertaining. Now…go check this flick out or I’ll bite the head off of your kitchen-roaming chicken!

Ignoring the mummers of the people and concern of the court, the count’s daughter sneaks out of the castle and head’s for the hills for a quick skinny dip. Instead of a refreshing swim though she’s dragged beneath the waves of the lake and into the clutches of the dragon! Determined to retrieve his daughter and slay the dragon, the count and his soldiers head for the lake to do battle with the beast. Instead of confronting the dragon they come face to face with a spacecraft emerging from the waters!

Turmoil threatens to tear the kingdom apart when the “dragon” still has not been slain and none of the count’s best men seem capable of stopping it. Thankfully the count’s sorrow is short-lived when his lovely princess is found wandering in the forest in a daze. Unable to relay her terrifying ordeal, the royal alchemist journey’s to a desolate part of the kingdom to confront the dragon and discover its secret of eternal life. The alchemist has competition though and a love-struck captain and an overzealous priest will stop at nothing to destroy him and break his hold over the count.

What evil lies within the reptilian armor of the monster? Who is the mysterious knight in black armor and has the alchemist truly found the elixir of eternal youth?

What a steamer! I have to admit that I was seriously Gung-ho for this flick because it sounded intriguing and I figured, at the very least, it would be a quality film with Keitel and Kinski involved. Silly me. Star Knight (aka The Knight of the Dragon) comes off like a cheesy mash-up of Starman, Dune and Black Knight, it combines elegant, unearthly production design with ineffective, bumbling comedy and unlikable characters. The alien, his “suit of armor” and his ship were gorgeous, they deserved a film worthy of their design, not this goofy meandering crap.

I wanted to like Kinski, his ice-cold blue eyes and dazzling smile but the vibe his character gives off is decidedly sinister and therefor hard to connect with. Keitel’s “brave knight” is idiotic and it only gets worse when the Brooklyn accent spills forth during his poorly delivered Olde English dialogue. Honestly, this was a real forehead slapper. I suppose the alien “IX” (Miguel Bosé) was okay but he doesn’t get lines and his acting consisted of wide eyes and head nods.

Star Knight was about as basic as they come, “Alien comes to Earth to study our world and he falls in love.” Big whoop, right? Well as simple as it is it really could have succeed (in its own way) had the characters worked better and the film was played straight. They didn’t and it wasn’t though and, in the end, instead of finding myself mildly entertained with a cool time-waster, I was bored to tears by “just plain bad.” I wish I could say that it got better at some point but it didn’t.

If you’re all about dumb-as-rocks sci-fi comedies like Pluto Nash and Galaxy Quest then you may find this only a little disappointing. Everybody else though should steer clear unless you’re a glutton for cinematic punishment, like me.

Okay first off this film in my eyes is a classic, it has everything a great sci-fi horror film should have and then some. The film, released by Shout! Factory on Blu-ray Disc, has never looked better! Not only does it look great but it also includes the now infamous giant worm rape scene and Erin Moran (aka Joanie Cunningham) getting her head squashed like a summer melon!

Galaxy of Terror is a who’s who of horror/exploitation with names like Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Grace Zabriskie, and Ray Walston. Director Bruce Clark does a nice job of keeping the pace moving and giving us the sexy or gory goods every few minutes, and oh what a bag of goods! We get guttings, scalpings, head-crushing, ripped-off arms and giant, horny maggots! The films FX is dated and the cheapness of the film shines through but you can’t beat Galaxy of Terror for what it is, GOOD FUCKING TIMES!

What can one say about a film staring a talking duck? Epic? Amazing? Classic? Well thought out? HELL NO! When Howard came out in 1986 it tanked at the box office and, even later, on home video. Was it because Howard was a turkey? Well, at the time yes.

Director Willard Huyck and writer Gloria Katz seemed to have no idea how the events of the film should play out so the kitchen sink approach was used to pad the run time and oh what a run time it is! At 2 hours, this over-stuffed turkey of a film gives us duck boobs, human/duck intimacy and an evil overlord. Let’s not forget a talking duck that has a “fowl” mouth!

Howard The Duck is full of ’80s fun, from the clothes, music and even stop-motion monsters! All this leads to little and the film needed less to begin with. I hear Howard The Duck has since become a cult film for a new generation but to this reviewer its not all it’s quacked up to be.

When I came across Blue Underground’s recent release of Amazon Jail I expected nothing less than semi-naked women in the Amazon. Imagine my surprise when I found out there wasn’t many semi-naked women in the Amazon! Nope, THEY WERE ALL NAKED IN THE AMAZON. Not only were they all naked but apparently they liked to catfight naked and wash each other’s clams! Thank God I smoked some crushed lithium in my crack pipe before popping this in because my heart almost stopped several times during this film. This flick had more beaver than a fur storage warehouse! There’s not much story here but who in the HELL cares?

A rich, scumbag white slaver is kidnapping women and turning them out as sex slaves for international buyers and businessmen. As you can imagine, the girls locked in a cage in the yard aren’t one bit pleased that they’re being forced to dance and partake in orgies. To show their protest, they constantly prance around the giant cage…naked.

Luckily for the girls, scumbag white slaver has a sympathetic nephew that enjoys getting it on with their “leader” through the cage while she’s…naked. He promises to help free them all and go to the police. Too bad he’s not all that bright though because his uncle is on to him and decides to lock him up in his room during an orgy.

During the fleshly camaraderie one of the girls makes a break for it into the jungle with trackers hot on her trail. Fortunately for her she runs into a group of young local girls bathing in a waterfall…heh heh…naked. They decide to help her but not before the trackers show up and capture all four of them. That night, dancing girl devises an escape by allowing one of the trackers to bang her while she stabs him in the back. Before she can make it very far, the trackers shoot her in the back. Hmm, no blood? WHO CARES!

When the hired hands bring back three new girls, scumbag white slaver is notified that the local police plan to investigate their disappearance. The shit has officially hit the fan and it’s time for the whole damn camp to bug out! Love struck nephew decides to free the girls during the commotion but they’re forced to split up. The group of girls hustle their bare asses into the jungle looking to escape…naked.

Leadership will be challenged…mercy will be sought and the soft touch of a loving lesbian will be required but beware…lonely gold miners working in the jungle haven’t seen women in quite some time. Some girls will die…others will wash each other’s ‘ginas.

MY GOD. This was so far down on the sleaze-o-meter that it’s almost a MUST HAVE film! This was presented in widescreen (1.66) format and the transfer looked wonderful. Granted, it was only made in ’82 but that’s more than enough time to be mishandled and deteriorate.

Despite having been made in Brazil, there’s only an English (2.0 mono) audio track available. I would have preferred subs and the original Portuguese audio but ultimately you don’t need sound or a fabulous picture to appreciate this slab of sinful stroketastic cinema.

On the extras front…don’t hold your breath. A trailer is presented here and that’s it. No featurettes, no stills, not even audio commentary by anybody connected with this film; not that admitting that would help their careers any but it would have been nice. Perhaps a small packet of lotion would have been better?

Exploitation fans will have a ball. The sheer amount of jiggling ass in this film would put most rap videos to shame. Don’t take my word for it though, just look at my hairy palm.