If you see only one movie in a theater this year ...

for God's sake make it GONE WITH THE POPE. I just witnessed this resurrected masterpiece at the Grand Illusion Theater here in Seattle and it is nothing short of spectacular. Can't wait for the DVD, or hopefully, the Blu-ray. Seriously, if you get the chance to see it in a theater, with a crowd that's game, you owe it to yourself to do so. It will be the best decision you make all year. I mean really, would you rather see that CLASH OF THE TITANS remake in 3D? Or goddamned HOT TUB TIME MACHINE? I fucking Think Not! Here's the ultra-rad poster, the ultra-rad trailer and the ultra-rad remaining theatrical dates for this incredible piece of American Trash Cinema.






April 23 & 25 - CPH PIX Festival, Copenhagen

May 6 - George Eastman House, Rochester, NY

May 10 - Doc Films, Chicago

May 21 & 22 - E Street Theatre, Washington, D.C.

June 4 & 5 - Landmark's Sunshine Cinemas, NYC

June 11 & 12 - Uptown Theatre, Minneapolis

June 18 & 19 Main Art Theatre, Detroit

June 25 & 26 River Oaks, Houston

July 2 & 3 Inwood Theatre, Dallas

Movie Review: SABIK ... KASALANAN BA? (Philippines, 1986)

RJR Films International/Fantasy Films International
Release date 1st May 1986
Directed by Lito J. de Guzman
Produced by Soledad Nequinto
Story by Danny Rivero
Screenplay by Armando de Guzman, Jr.
Cinematography by Joe Tutanes
Music by Jeny Lee
Editing by Rene Tala

Starring
George Estregan
Joy Sumilang
Maureen Mauricio
Tani Cinco
Gino Antonio
Daria Ramirez

Ubiquitous Filipino sexfilm actor Estregan sets in motion a sleazy chain of events when he successfully seduces his stepdaughter (Mauricio). While her mother, his wife (Ramirez), is none the wiser the younger daughter (Sumilang) spies on their heated couplings with guilty excitement. Inevitably his attentions turn to this curious virgin. Although at first she resists his affection, it’s only a matter of time before she relents, in surprising hardcore fashion. This being a rather typical erotic melodrama, she soon finds herself in a family way. Wanting to hide her and her Stepdad’s shame, she agrees to marry the young good looking suitor (Cinco) she had previously found little time for. But while young love blossoms between the two, his dedication to getting ahead at his job soon frustrates our young heroines escalating sex drives. She finds sweet relief in the arms of her husband’s best friend (Antonio), in another extended hardcore sequence. But even he cannot give her all she needs. So she begins to entertain most of the single men in her neighborhood, as the local busybodies whisper in earnest. Unavoidably, her husband walks in on her rigorously boffing his closest friend. Slipping away unnoticed, he plots his revenge, poisoning a dinner he skips out on, killing his pal and framing his wife. Overpowered by the guilt of her unscrupulous actions Sumilang takes the rap and resolves herself to a life in prison. But her husband is crushed by his own guilt and soon confesses to the crime. In a parallel tragedy, the karmic wheel set in motion by Estregan’s transgressions turns back onto him. His wife catches him passionately screwing her eldest daughter. Turning his own gun on him (is he a cop?) his wife murders them both. But somehow we get a happy ending. Years later, Sumilang’s husband is released from jail and is reunited with his wife and daughter, back to a karmic square one.

Although hardly the most original or clever plot, SABIK keeps the sleazy melodrama coming at a pleasing pace. It never flags, consistently tossing a soft or hard sex scene at you every ten minutes or so. The film-making is proficient but uninspired, never reaching the delirious quasi-art film highs of other Filipino sex productions like SILIP or HUBO SA DALIM. But it does manage to keep its drama just enough on the boil to hold one’s interest. The tone is deadly serious throughout, blessedly never copping out to a superfluous comedy subplot like so many Southeast Asian movies. In fact the only concession to lightness comes at the end of the film and it feels phony. The downward spiral of the story is too neatly resolved, running against the grain of the film’s direction. But that said, the plot is never very complex or rich so it’s not much of a betrayal. The only real point of the movie is the fucking, which it provides in a number of soft scenes and two extended hard scenes. But the hard stuff is rather unimaginative and unarousing, consisting mostly of George Estregan and/or Gino Antonio’s wrinkly balls slapping mercilessly against poor Joy Sumilang’s anus. Rather it’s the sleazy incestual undertones which mark out SABIK as unusual and interesting, and the way these taboos lead to the eventual disintegration of the Sumilang’s moral character. Not that her performance carries any of this dramatic weight. In fact all the performances are rather flat, with only Filipino b-movie vet Estregan providing any charisma, although entirely of a sleazy, reptilian bent.

SABIK was one of a number of hardcore sex films made in the tumultuous mid 1980s in the Philippines. During the year of SABIK’s production and release, 1986, perhaps as many as 30 of these “pene” movies (because they featured scenes of “penetration”) were released, although this is one of the most famous and controversial. Star Sumilang provided some real “Pinoy Babylon” infamy to the film for her disputed claims to be the illegitimate daughter of famous Filipino actor Romeo Vasquez. Her career only lasted a few films, not unusual for this period or this genre. The list of actress casualties of the ‘Bold’ and ‘Pene’ era is startling. It was apparently not a good time or place to be a sex film performer. That many of these girls were rumored to be legally underage at the time of many of these productions only adds to the unhealthy veneer of the industry and the films themselves. This was one of only a handful of films director Lito de Guzman made during this time (NAGAAPOY NA GABI being another), and was his last until 2000 when he began to making a series of contemporary sex dramas. Why Guzman suffered this long drought is unknown, although the infamy of the movie in the Philippines may have something to do with it. Previously an assistant director on low-budget action epics, he seems to have carried little of the auteurial weight that Peque Gallaga or Celso ad Castillo threw around in acclaimed hits like SCORPIO NIGHTS or VIRGIN PEOPLE and so could not rise above his porn director stigma. Although no great work of art, it’s wonderful that SABIK is still around to view as so many of these fascinating films now seem to be lost forever. If you can find it, check it out, it’s a rare view into a cinematic world now largely forgotten.


Special thanks to:

Simon Santos and his excellent Video 48 blog for use of the above image and his remarks on the 'pene' films of 1986.

Jojo Devara and his great Sari-Saring Sineng Pinoy blog for background info on cast and crew and for clearing up obscure plot points to this non-Tagolog-speaking audience member.

Wild Turkish Erotica!

From the mid 70s until the military coup in 1980, erotic films made up the bulk of the cinematic output in Turkey. Here's a selection of clips and (where applicable) ad art of some of these raw and mostly forgotten artifacts. The good news is: all the films below are available in English subtitled versions from our friends at CIKO. Just check out their ebay page here.

SONSUZ GECE
1978; Directed by Yucel Ucanoglu
Starring Unsal Emre and Zerrin Egeliler



YALAN
1976; Directed by Cetin Inanc
Starring Yalcin Gulhan, Figen Han and Erol Tas

YALAN - THE LIE 1976

CIKO MySpace Video

KAFES
1976; Directed by Yucel Ucanoglu
Starring Unsal Emre and Aynur Akarsu

KAFES - THE CAGE 1976

CIKO MySpace Video

KIVRIL FAKAT KIRILMA
1976; Directed by Cetin Inanc
Starring Unsal Emre, Ceyda Karahan and Alev Altin



TWIST BUT NO BREAK - 1976

CIKO MySpace Video

CILDIRTAN KADIN
1978; Directed by Cetin Inanc
Starring Tarik Simsek and Zerrin Egeliler



GUNAH
1974; Directed by Cetin Inanc
Starring Arzu Okay and Tugay Tuksoz

GUNAH - THE SIN

CIKO MySpace Video

SON GULEN
1977; Directed by Cetin Inanc
Starring Yalcin Gulhan and Necla Fine

LORNA THE EXORCIST! June!

Incredible cover! June 29th, 2010! More info to follow when we get it.

DVD Review: SADIST WITH RED TEETH/FORBIDDEN PARIS (Mondo Macabro)

When MM first made their announcement that they’d be releasing SADIST WITH RED TEETH on DVD, there were several cult-film pundits crowing about the utter awfulness of this French vampire opus. And indeed by anyone’s standards of what constitutes a “normal” film, SADIST is mind-bogglingly terrible. Its plot is hopelessly confused, its script sounds made-up on the spot, the performances practically define the description “wooden” and the special effects are totally unrealistic. Your average self-respecting horror fan might look on these meager works and despair. But the open-minded cult film fan, the lover of the eccentric and the bizarre in world cinema will look upon SADIST with nothing but wide-eyed affection. For me it was love at first sight. SADIST is pure weirdo entertainment, more psychedelic than terrifying, mesmerizing in its total commitment to its own oddness.

A man thinks he is becoming a vampire following his release from a hospital. His doctors attempt to continue and foster this belief to further some obscure occult conspiracy. Eventually of course he ends up murdering some people and the police are soon hot on his trail. Except that that in no way sums up what is actually going on in this movie. SADIST is confoundingly weird, separating you from any sensible interpretation of the gothic events unfolding willy-nilly. Grainy stock footage of natural disasters regularly intercedes on the action ostensibly illustrating the main character’s violent state of mind, along with arty polarization effects and random shots of snakes and spiders, but these wayward avant-garde effects do more to interrupt the viewer’s frame of mind than reveal anything of value about the characters. Oddball characters waft in and out of the story with little rhyme and certainly no reason. My advice? Just give up and go with the flow. If you like weird movies, and you probably do, this is seriously one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. It has a weirdness that is beyond words. SADIST WITH RED TEETH comes with Worldweird Cinema’s highest recommendation possible. If you don’t like this movie, it’s possible that bizarre foreign cult movies are just not for you.

I wish I could say the same about FORBIDDEN PARIS. Oh, it’s pretty weird, and has some wonderfully odd images and moments, but it just barely held my attention throughout. Director Van Belle’s first feature film, it’s a “mondo” style documentary depicting a swath of oddballs and nutjobs in the Paris of the late 60s. It starts off strong with a slow motion shot of a woman walking through the streets in the buff, and then heading into a vignette showing a family of three preparing for a post-nuclear future. But overall there’s a little too much drag in the episodes, with the usual fakirs and animal deaths and whatnot. I am not much of fan of this type of cult movie, and PARIS did not covert me. It does have a great droney pop-jazz score and it looks good, but I doubt I’ll be returning to it anytime soon, unlike SADIST, which is already demanding an encore viewing.

Mondo Macabro’s digital video presentation of each of these rare and almost lost films is nigh perfect. A wee-bit of damage on the negative for SADIST comes through, but otherwise it’s astonishingly beautiful, colorful and sharp. PARIS fares even better, looking as though it could have been filmed last year and not 40 years ago. There’s a great French language documentary about Van Belle, which centers on this enigmatic directors propensity for storytelling and obscuring the truth of his own biography. Liner notes from Christophe Bier, who is also interviewed in the docu, do their best to separate fact from fiction but ends up emphasizing the unknowability of this unique figure in European low budget cinema. JLVB himself does little video introductions to each film, talking a bit about his reasons for casting mega-cutie British actress Jane Clayton in SADIST. Mostly it was because she was mega-cute, and had nothing to do with her acting. Which, after you watch the movie, will make perfect sense. She’s not very good, but she’s totally hot. His intro for PARIS emphasizes the verite of each scene, claiming nothing was staged. I think I may have to call bullshit on that one, but judge for yourself. While we are only two months into 2010, Mondo Macabro has unleashed a likely contender for the best DVD of the year. SADIST is amazing and the extras all worthwhile (even PARIS though I didn’t much care for it). Do yourself a favor and inject some much-needed weirdness into your life with this astonishing double-bill release.

DVD Review: ALTIN COCUK (Onar Films)

International spy films have often used Istanbul as a stock location to give a feeling of mystery and intrigue. Its unique architecture and deep history lend this easily, and it doesn’t hurt that during the 60s and 70s there was a film industry based there which actively sought out international co-productions. Istanbul was cheap and exotic, two very big plusses when it comes to the b-movie industry. So why wouldn’t the Turks want to take advantage of this themselves and not just leave it to the Italians or the Brits? They did so starting in ‘66 with a series of amiable James Bond knockoffs filmed under the banner ALTIN COCUK. Onar’s latest DVD is a presentation of the first film in that series, and while it probably isn’t going to blow your mind or change your life it is terrific fun nonetheless. Featuring romantic leading man Goksel Arsoy as the Bondish Altin Cocuck (or “Golden Boy”) a super-suave, super-deadly superagent out to protect Turkey from Cold War-era nogoodniks and to get as many lovely and scantily clad Anatolian chicks into bed as possible. There are a lot of double crossings, disguises, torture, gunfights, near-naked girls, underwater hi-jinks and love on the sly as our hero prevents mega-Turk-baddie Altan Gunbay from blowing up all Istanbul in an event which Gunbay predicts will be “more fun than Hiroshima”. One girl is whipped nearly out of her dress and another is strung up while in a bikini and slowly hung as the ice she’s made to stand on melts away under a heat lamp and the diabolical glare of Gunbay. The movie spits out one fast-paced scene after the next in the best Yesilcam cheap-but-entertaining tradition and is never, ever boring. But if you’re looking for the weirdest or wackiest or bloodiest or sexiest Turkish film, this one ain’t it. Not by a long shot. But it’s wild enough and rare enough to hold a bright spot in your heart and your DVD collection if you’re just willing to let it in and do its thing.

More in the movie’s favor than its plot or action are its relatively great cinematic qualities. Director Memduh Un enriches each frame with a wonderfully expressionist, almost noir-ish eye. Dutch angles and moody lighting give it an atmosphere beyond the simple and action and poverty of plot. ALTIN COCUK looks great, better than it should, and is a shining testament to the often unheralded talents that were behind these disposable pop films. The acting isn’t anything that you wouldn’t find in any other Turkish film (or Spanish or Greek or Egyptian for that matter), but the cheap charisma of Goksel Arsoy holds things together nicely for the brief duration of the flick. And of course Altan Gunbay, in one of his earliest roles is typically great as the bald bad-ass out to betray his brethren. But really, it’s the endless parade of beautiful ladies that keeps your attention in scenes not featuring gunfire or torture. Sevda Nur plays the main girl, and while she hasn’t much to do, her dark and ethereal beauty are mesmerizing and after awhile you don’t really remember that she not really all that great as an actor. There’s quite a bit to be excited about in this movie, especially if you enjoy 60s spy flicks. Honestly, it’s never really been my cup of tea, I don’t even care for the Bond movies, but one thing I do like is Turkish pop cinema, in any shape or genre, and so ATLIN COCUK gives me just enough of that thrill that it will keep me coming back as long as it remains in on my DVD shelf.

Onar’s discs just keep getting better. This is one of the best looking yet. On par with many of Something Weird Video’s transfers of American 60s low budgets epics, you get a lovely, clear b&w 4:3 fullscreen image. Considering the sometimes awful state of the prints Onar often has to deal with, ALTIN’s fine presentation is a minor miracle. Extras soar as well. The best is the first ever filmed interview with longtime Turkfilm villain Altan Gunbay. It’s full of great and illuminating info concerning his career and the Turkish film industry in general. On the downside, the video is appallingly edited, with no rhyme or reason to the structure of the interview. Valuable stuff, nonetheless. The usual, terrific and informed bios and filmographies are here as well as some trailers for other Onar things. The exciting bits here concern two mysterious upcoming releases. One is a formerly lost KILINK movie, whose title is still unknown at press time: the scene included is wonderfully sadistic and certainly whets the appetite for more. Perhaps even more mindblowing is RINGO GESTAPO’YA KARSI, a feverish looking adventure pitting cowboys against Nazis in the wilds of Anatolia. I need this one as soon as possible, OK Bill? All in all, another great time provided by Onar Films of Athens, Greece. Fans of 60s international spy films will want to waste no time in picking this one up and the usual Worldweirders, if they don’t already have it, are heartily recommended to pick it up at their earliest convenience.

DVD Review: THE ALCOVE (Severin)

Set during the years of Italy’s ill-fated imperial drive into East Africa, Joe D’Amato’s ultrasleazy THE ALCOVE plays deeply on disturbing master-slave dynamics of that era for its particular brand of kink. Al Cliver (DEVIL HUNTER) plays an aristocrat returning from the front with one impressive spoil of war, an Abyssinian princess played by legendary Eurosex goddess Laura Gemser. He returns home to a domestic situation already brimming with erotic confusion as his wife, Allessandra ( BEING TWENTY’s Lili Carati) has begun an affair with the secretary (LAURE’s Annie Belle ) hired to aid him in writing his war-time memoirs. The addition of Gemser to this hothouse of potentially dangerous sensuality causes the whole thing to boil over. Soon, Belle and Cliver are out of favor with the wife, who has succumbed to the savage charms of the African slave-queen. Throw in a leering brute of a gardener (spaghetti western and Poliziotteschi vet Nello Pazzafini) to the volatile mix and you know events are bound to end with the usual violence and rape. Tables are turned, dynamics are reversed, and reversed again, and the film ends with an actually somewhat shocking, fiery conclusion.

The film is enflamed with political incorrectness as an aid to its erotic aims. There are several references to Gemser as nothing more than an animal, which seems to be a driving factor in the film’s view of her sensual allure, for both the characters and the intended audience. The racist implications of Italy’s African colonial adventure are played out in an almost satirical manner in this porno/chamber drama, serving needs both lascivious and political. The shifting power dynamics both cultivate and expose racist attitudes in what is ultimately a rather confusing mish-mash of intentions. Gemser gains the upper hand over all the other characters in the film, revealing herself to be the most powerful and headstrong in the ensemble. The climax of the film has Gemser orchestrating a filmed rape of Belle by Pazzafini and Carati in a nun’s habit. With this humiliation Gemser enacts a cultural revenge for her own violation at the hands of Cliver. But there is yet another reversal of fortunes which serves to only re-emphasize the racial status quo of the time period.

But still, with all that, THE ALCOVE is great Eurotrash entertainment. Gemser is a powerful presence throughout, and her performance carries the dramatic thrust of the film. But even she possibly couldn’t have saved this from being a dreary and/or completely offensive movie without the deft cinemagraphic hand of Director D’Amato. His beautiful compositions and lighting give THE ALVOVE a classy sumptuousness it almost certainly does not deserve. And then of course there’s just the ironic thrill of the offensiveness itself. There is no way in hell a movie like this could be made anywhere in the world today, making it a unique artifact. If you’re of the right mindset, and most readers of this blog probably are, the constant non-p.c. sleaze on display will make you light up like Christmas. I had never seen this one before this fine DVD, and it only deepens my appreciation for Joe D’Amato as both a cinematic craftsman of a high order and as filmic pimp and conman, letting you peep in on a world you’d never want to live in but might just be very curious about nonetheless.

Severin’s DVD looks pretty good. It’s flagged for progressive playback, it’s anamorphic, roughly the correct aspect ratio and the colors are strong. There’s a constant high level of grain throughout, betraying the low-budget origins of the movie which the otherwise beautiful cinematography might hide. It is a little on the soft side, but that just may be the style of the film, sort of dreamy, hot and hazy. There is some film damage near the end of the movie, but this is never distracting, and only reinforces the grindhouse-y nature of the whole spectacle. An old battered trailer, likely sourced from a VHS is included as an extra along with a short but interesting video interview with D’Amato. Done in the mid-1990s, when ole Joe was still among the living, it covers mostly his Emanuelle movies with Gemser. While it isn’t groundbreaking, you’ve probably heard most of this stuff before, it’s great for this obscure footage to finally get an airing. D’Amato is a director who greatest auteurial fame has been posthumous so any thing with expressing his own views on his work is of high value to his many late-arriving fans. All in all, a fine presentation of a great, if outright offensive, European cult sex film and highly recommended to all readers of this blog.

The Twisted Path of R1 DVD!

Here's a quick rundown of some upcoming R1 DVDs of interest to Worldweirdians. All dates are subject to change, perhaps even likely to change. Images are copped from dvdaf.com as always.

BATTLE GIRL: LIVING DEAD IN TOKYO BAY (Synapse) coming 02-23-10


BEHIND CONVENT WALLS (Cult Epics) coming 03-30-10


BUSHIDO: CRUEL CODE OF THE SAMURAI (AnimEigo) coming 02-09-10


DEATH JOURNEY (Code Red) coming 03-16-10


FERNANDO ARRABAL COLLECTION VOL. 2 (Cult Epics) coming 02-23-10


GIRLY (Scorpion) coming 3-30-10


INTERNECINE PROJECT (Scorpion) coming 02-23-10


MEAN JOHHNY BARROWS (Code Red) coming 03-16-10


PORNO (Impulse) coming 04-27-10


POWER PLAY (Scorpion) coming 02-23-10


SADIST WITH RED TEETH/FORBIDDEN PARIS (Mondo Macabro) coming 03-30-10


SAYURI ICHIRO: FOLLOWING DESIRE (Kimstim/Kino) coming 03-23-10


SCREAM (Code Red/Shriek Show) coming 02-23-10


SWEET TEEN (Mya) coming 04-27-10


TAXI HUNTER (Eastern Star) coming 02-23-10


TWISTED PATH OF LOVE (Kimstim/Kino) coming 03-23-10


WITHOUT TRACE (Mya) coming 04-27-10


YAKUZA JUSTICE: EROTIC CODE OF HONOR (Kimstim/Kino) coming 03-23-10


More good Worldweird stuff to come, including reviews of Severin's new D'Amato sleazefest THE ALCOVE and Onar's latest essential Turkish cult release ALTIN COCUCK! Stay tuned for those as well as more reviews of extremely obscure foreign cult goodies!

Merry Xmas EVIL!!!

Hey worldweirders, enjoy this little smidgen of sicko Xmas cheer. WWC will be back in full force with new reviews and news next year!

Movie Review: DE ESPALDAS (Cuba, 1956)

DE ESPALDAS
"Backs Turned"
aka CUBAN CONFIDENTIAL
Cuba, 1956
Directed and Produced by Mario Barral
Screenplay by Mario Barral, Francisco Pazos, Francisco Forcade, Oscar Luis Lopez
Cinematography by Manuel S. Conde
Edited by Michael Cerone
Music by Jose de Aguilera
CAST:
Emilio G. Navarro
Maria Brenes
Jose de San Anton
Manuel Estanillo
Armando Martinez

A man awakens to find his mood troubled. While walking to work he unknowingly wanders into a graveyard and so begins an existential musing that lasts for the rest of the day and the film. Mostly he aimlessly wanders the streets, constantly asking himself ‘Why?” when stumbling across social injustice. He ponders the evils of sick children, poverty and Marxism. At one point he flashes back to a fortune teller and her witchy words make him believe he has power over life and death. He informs a dying boy that he will not die after all, only to hear mere seconds later that the child has gone and croaked anyway. This does nothing to alleviate his mood. While stopping outside a prison, a warden appears and asks him to speak with a man condemned to die. It is his last wish to speak with the first man the warden comes across. The doomed man explains that his only real crime is being ugly, and therefore impossible to believe when he claims he did not murder his beautiful lover. Our hero does believe him and comes away more convinced than ever of the hopelessness of the world. Which is only further exasperated by a chance meeting with a random floozy (perhaps prostitute – the narrative is unclear) with whom he tries to make sense of the days events before her angry husband comes home to beat her in what appears to be a daily ritual. All his sadness and misery are solved, conveniently, by his return home. Met by his adoring children and maid-like wife, our man in Havana is welcomed by the warm embrace of family, of middle-class life and most importantly perhaps, of television. The films ends with the entire family gathered around its hearth-like glow, entranced by its angst-easing flicker. In an odd and ostensibly poetic bit of casting, his family are all played by the same actors who portrayed the various shady characters encountered in his long’s days journey into TV-illuminated night.

DE ESPALDAS has serious artistic aspirations. It’s full of 50s European-esque arty angst a la Bergman or Italian neo-realism, but it just doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still an entertaining and interesting movie. Just not for the reasons it is intended for. The hero’s completely ridiculous voice-over monologues seem almost like a parody of existential navel-gazing, it’s so over the top and full of square-jaw sincerity. Despite its utter seriousness of intent, it comes across completely comedic. The English dubbing may have something to do with this, sounding as though it were recorded through a megaphone rather than a microphone. The music, too, seems at odds with the grave events unfolding. It’s a swath of typically 50s sounding library cues more at home in a pirate adventure movie than a film about a man touring through the suffering of the world. It creates an unintentional frisson which works in spite of itself, but only though an unhealthy veil of snickering irony. The film’s best moments are the hand-held street scenes, particularly a lively street carnival, filled with outrageous, campy costumes. Meant to represent the main character’s disorientation, it the only time when the movie feels alive and in it’s own skin. The rest of the movie, with all it’s labored conscientiousness, feels a bit off, a bit fake. There’s also a palpable, and uncomfortable, feeling of propaganda about the whole thing. The condemnation of the socialist organizers, for instance, or in the film’s obvious pro-US middle class values of the finale. It’s weird and disconcerting and makes the whole thing even more interesting, despite the blatant flaws of the film on its own terms.

Little information is available about Director Mario Barral. He appears to have died in 2000, only two years before his son, Rolando Barral, himself a media celebrity in the Miami Cuban exile community. Mario worked mostly in radio, television and theater in pre-revolutionary Cuba during the 40s and 50s. He was the head of CMQ, Cuba’s largest and most successful television studio during the medium’s infancy. After the revolution, Barral made his way to Miami where he continued to work in Spanish language media, even publishing a series of poetry books and writing and producing several plays. DE ESPALDAS was his first film. His second, and last, is CON EL DESEO EN LOS DEDOS (“With Desire in the Fingers”), an even more obscure film which reportedly never played outside Cuba, LOS DEDOS is described by an IMDB reviewer as “one of the serious attempts of making a(n) … erotic film in Cuba in the late 50's”. But judging from this one available film, Barral was no natural film-maker. ESPALDAS is mostly stilted and crude, exuding only a whiff of cinematic poetry here and there. Obviously an attempt to make a serious “art film” ESPALDAS is compromised by Barral’s limitations as a director and by the awkward propagandic impulses bubbling just underneath the film’s surface. Something Weird Video has this film available as either a VHS (this is how I saw it) or a DVD-R. In typical exploitation ballyhoo fashion their catalog drastically oversells it, describing it as a “lost art film masterpiece” or a “bargain basement Bunuel”. It’s neither, though still of interest to those wanting to dig into the often obscure world of South American cinema.

Special Thanks to David Wilt for additional biographical info.

DVD Review: BORN OF FIRE (Mondo Macabro)

Mondo Macabro has done it again. They’ve uncovered a mostly unknown and completely unique film and given it the red carpet, 5-star treatment. BORN OF FIRE is an imperfect film, but is such a bizarre and visually stimulating piece that its faults dissipate quickly from your mind. A mystic-minded horror-fantasy with a healthy dollop of art-film gravitas, BORN bends and slinks around most of your “normal” preconceptions of genre or mainstream narrative. Its Islamic context gives it a refreshing texture that is effortlessly exotic (it would make a fine double feature with another Islamic art-horror: Kutlug Ataman’s THE SERPENT'S TALE). The film carries you along by magick and music, by imagination and emotion rather than plot, which is somewhat weak. A concert flautist’s chance meeting with a mysterious woman takes him unexpectedly to Turkey to investigate the circumstances of his father’s death. His father had gone to Turkey to study under “The Master Musician”, a man of supernatural musical talents who is somehow responsible for his death. This investigation leads to obscure revelations concerning the end of the world by excessive solar and volcanic activity. Our hero must prevent this occurrence by a musical dual with the Master, who, it turns out, is essentially Satan.

The synopsis above does not, and cannot, possibly convey the impact this movie has. It’s full of weird and mysterious events which make little or no logical or narrative sense: a woman stoned to death by flowers instead of rocks, a djinn who responds to a sung Muslim prayer by shooting flames from his eyes, a vulture crashing through a shattered windshield on a rainy London night, the hero’s mysterious woman-friend, possessed by the djinn sends a steam of menstrual blood down her leg into a salt-water pool which later becomes a cocoon containing a monstrous moth that somehow causes her death when it hatches. Taken apart, these events hardly attach themselves to the “save the world by atoning for the sins of the father” thrust of the BORN’s plot. Taken together, with the other-worldly ambiance which seems to seep subconsciously into your mind, these images and many others like them form the dream-like corpus of the movie. Your perception abandons the narrative and floats along this metaphysical, surreal visual stream. Occasionally the spell is broken, mostly by clunky, tin-eared dialog (“The music originates here. The fire is its source” for one example) which reads almost like poetry on paper but sounds insufferably pretentious when voiced aloud by the actors. And the plot itself sometimes comes off half-baked, as though perhaps compromises during the film’s production limited the material that could be filmed, giving it an unintended ambiguity. But ultimately, ambiguity is OK with me, as long as the film itself is interesting enough to carry it through. BORN OF FIRE is, if nothing else, very interesting.

The DVD is total aces. The 1.85:1 widescreen presentation is spot on and beautiful. I could find no fault in it. A ton of relevant extras round out this great release, most notably three interviews with cast and crew. Director Jamil Dehalavi discusses his career and BORN OF FIRE in particular in great detail which is gives the film some nice context. As an aside I might point out that Dehalavi seems to agree with me about the dialog, insisting that you could do away with it and not adversely affect the film. Peter Firth is next and is very charming, and although proud of the movie seems still a little befuddled by it. Perhaps the best interview is with Nabil Shaban, who plays a deformed dwarf who in some ways becomes the main character of the movie. He seems to be one of the few people to be able to give a comprehensive answer to questions concerning what the film is actually all about. I’m not sure I agree with him 100% but his views are articulate and entertaining. Shaban is wild-eyed and enthusiastic throughout, discussing his career and the film with contagious affection. Highly informative, if rather brief and to the point, text pages by MM CEO Pete Tombs plaster you with further details about the movie, its production and cast. A VHS sourced trailer completes the package, along with the always-there MM preview reel, which sadly has not been updated to include this movie, their previous release GRADIVA or the upcoming SADIST WITH RED TEETH. All in all, this is a delirious and wonderful film let down somewhat by its own story, but is given an amazing and well-rounded DVD presentation so that thousands more people can make up their own minds about it.

New Onar DVD: ALTIN COCUK (THE GOLDEN BOY)!!!

From Onar HQ, the News!

Dig the Details:



ALTIN COCUK (THE GOLDEN BOY)
If there was something the Turks were great at- besides Superhero adaptations- that sure was Spy special treatments. ALTIN COCUK was such a hit in 1966 that spawned 3 sequels in no time thus rendering the title hero more successful and cult than Mr. Bond himself! Luckily, the last surviving materials were found in pretty good condition, securing convenient entertainment through this worldwide DVD premiere.

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF CELLAT (TURKISH DEATH WISH)!

Country: Turkey
Year: 1966
Director: Memduh Un
Actors: Goksel Arsoy, Altan Gunbay, Sevda Nur, Reha Yurdakul

FEATURES:
ULTRA-LIMITED EDITION OF 500 numbered copies
Turkish audio with English & Greek subs
Dolby Digital 2.0
INTERVIEW with Altan Gunbay
TURKISH INTRIGUE (Article on Turkish Spy Films)
Spy Films Selected Filmography
Poster Insert
Photogallery
Biographies
Filmographies
NEW Trailers (A Newly-discovered, considered lost, KILINK film, PLUS another LOST gem, RINGO GESTAPO'YA KARSI!! Both trailers will premier exclusively on this DVD and nowhere else!!)

DVD Review: HARDWARE (Severin Films)

Richard Stanley’s HARDWARE finally makes its debut on DVD (as well as Blu-Ray) after a decade or more of legal entanglements have kept in video limbo. Though it may have been a long time in coming, the wait is well worth it. Severin has pulled together a generous amount of supplemental material and has remastered the picture itself to perfection. HARDWARE is a cacophonous and kaleidoscopic apocalypse thriller which veers from flesh-ripping gore to dreamy idyll with disturbing ease. Set in a bleak future made terminal not by a single holocaust but by many and varied Armageddons, Stanley’s film depicts the struggles of two primary characters, Mo (Dylan McDermott) and Jill (Stacy Travis) to connect with each other amidst the rubble. Making this connection ever more complicated is the android killing machine that Mo, a post-industrial scrap-metal scavenger, has brought home in pieces as a Xmas present for Jill, a post-industrial scrap-metal sculptor. Unbeknownst to either of them, this killbot (officially known as MARK 13) is actually still operational, and what’s more, has a rather precocious talent for rebuilding itself. You can see where this is going I’m sure. Add in healthy doses of hallucinatory drugs, slimy voyeurs, nosy dwarfs, GWAR concert footage, lots of saws and drills and therefore also barrelfuls of blood and you have the makings of an exhilarating if not always coherent film explosion.

But coherency is not really what Stanley is after here. Delirium is the standing order of the day, and a fractal sort of sensory reaction to all the bloodspurting and metal-crawling. Highly influenced by Dario Argento and other Italian horror directors, Stanley is aiming after the same kind of disorienting effects those maestros so effortlessly achieve. He is drowning you is visceral details, loud music and vivid neon color schemes to plunge you into a heightened and fugue-like state of mind. He’s trying to alter the chemicals in your brain, and he does a damn fine job of it. The movie doesn’t work as well as a simple exercise in sci-fi or horror. Structurally, it’s quite messy. Before you know it, you’re smack dab in the middle of the violent climax of the film less than an hour into it, which then lasts the rest of the running time (in the audio commentary Stanley remarks that this is deliberate and an homage to a similar structure used in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2). This explodes the three-act structure and its inherent means of generating suspense giving you no choice but to experience the movie in very different frame of mind. The film works more as a hallucinatory experience than a standard thriller. HARDWARE is as much a drug as it is a film. It tosses around your perceptions wildly, from moody synth soundscapes over red-tinted desert skies to flesh-ripping animated mechanical debris and clutter scored to Ministry songs, from evoking Hindu gods and New Testament apocalypses to paranoid musings on what terrors the Military-Industrial complex may hold in store for us.

But there is a point to all this, all this shredding and screaming and brutal android-human interface: HARDWARE is all about humanity’s death wish. About those suicidal drives which collectively embroil us in wars, which make us disregard the ecological effects of our lifestyles or which treat other human beings as nothing but playthings for our own shallow pleasures. A plot thread running almost underneath the events of the picture involves a government population control program meant to sterilize people in order to bring a halt to deformities and mutations. Mo and Jill themselves struggle over whether or not to have children and whether or not there is some justification for this eugenics program. As Stanley points out in the interview in this set, the HARDWARE world is one where extreme right wing elements have taken over, but with the total complicity of the population. In this vision of the future, everyone is in on the End of the World, not just some faceless masters. MARK 13 is the physical, mechanical embodiement of these suicidal drives, an insectile murder machine crowned by a literal death’s head. While Mo may not have known consciously what he was bringing home to Jill and while she may not have understood why she was so attracted to it, their own suicidal drives are in full operation here, making them as much a part of the horror that follows as the makers of the deathdroid. “This is what you want/ this is what you get.”

As stated above, it’s taken HARDWARE awhile to become available in the DVD era. Its digital debut makes quite the splash however, easily besting any previous home video incarnations. It is presented uncut for the first time ever in these here United States in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio that is just spot on. The transfer is gorgeous and it’s all “flagged for progressive playback” and whatever. It looks great, it’s all here and that’s all you really need to know about that. Now on to the extras! While not quite as comprehensive or exhaustive as Subversive’s 5-disc version of Stanley’s masterpiece DUST DEVIL, Severin has given us an incredible selection of bonus features which make this 2-discer easily one of the best releases of the year. On disc one in addition to the marvelous feature itself there’s a highly informative audio commentary with Richard Stanley hosted by DVD producer Norm Hill. It covers the background of the film, where the ideas came from and various minutia involved in the production. Stanley seems a little reticent on the commentary, basically saying in fact that he doesn’t enjoy such things, and so often his commentary seems a little stilted or self-conscious. No matter, it’s a must-listen for fans of the film. Expanding on this is an impressive and very thorough (though oddly McDermott is not involved) ‘making-of’ featurette boasting brand new interviews with producers, cast and crew. It seems Mr. Stanley was only 22 when he made this movie and to make it the producers had to coax him out of Afghanistan where he was fighting the Russians with the Mujahedeen! Incredible! A side interview with just Stanley illuminates the question of an aborted sequel to HARDWARE and these features are rounded out with a German trailer, a vintage promotional video featuring brief interviews with Stanley, McDermott and Travis as well as a selection of rare extended and deleted scenes. It’s all great stuff.

But really we’re just getting started with the special features! Severin have included three short films to sweeten the deal, and they are all well worth a watch. RITES OF PASSAGE is an 8mm short made while Stanley was only a teenager in South Africa. While as crude and primitive as you might expect it to be, it also contains strong indications of the visionary film-maker he would soon become. A tale of reincarnation, suicide and consciousness expansion RITES mostly follows a pre-historic man on a hunting expedition. Great use of desolate African locations and local wildlife give it a radical verite. The young director builds a bizarre, almost mystic atmosphere and winds things up with a healthy dollop of gore. At the other end of this spectrum is his most recent fiction production: a short, poetic sci-fi called SEA OF PERDITION, which involves a female astronaut exploring an alien world with psychedelic consequences. Made on digital video, it looks wonderful and has great production values, although I must admit I’m rather prejudiced and think it would have looked much better if it had been made on film. But then I’m a relic of the 20th century living in the 21st. Another 8mm film INCIDENTS IN AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE gives a useful peek at the origins of HARDWARE in its earliest, most crude form. What these short films prove, beyond a doubt, is that Richard Stanley is natural born film-maker and one of the few contemporary directors to possess anything like a real artistic vision.

This DVD set is absolutely aces and well deserving of your hard-earned cash. It’s also out on Blu-Ray so if you incline to that format, that’s probably the way to go. But the movie and the set are not perfect however. The movie’s faults can mostly be attributed to Stanley’s novice status as a screenwriter, as some of the dialog, especially early on, is a little akward. A few cheesy moments here and there also break up the magick somewhat. In a scene featuring a cameo appearance from Motorhead’s Lemmy, the grizzled metal legend entertains the main character by playing him a quick sample of “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead! Really? And as far as the DVD presentation, a little more information or interviews about the short films would be useful to put them in the wider context of Stanley’s career. But these are only minor quibbles for what is otherwise an astonishing film and a revelatory digital presentation. No sci-fi, horror, cult or international cinema fan should be without this release in whatever format they can get their hands on.

UPDATED!! Coming soon from Mondo Macabro: THE SADIST WITH RED TEETH!!

OUT MARCH 30, 2010!!!

It's with barely contained excitement that Worldweird Cinema brings you the big scoop on the next MM DVD release! It will be none other than Belgian director Jean-Louis Van Belle's lost vampire opus THE SADIST WITH RED TEETH! We've wanted to check out this Jean Rollin-influenced poetic horror cheapie since first reading about some years ago in the essential book IMMORAL TALES. And now we will get our chance to gaze firsthand at this rarity! Making this even more mouth-watering is that it will be a double feature! Van Belle's mondoesque (and even more rare) FORBIDDEN PARIS is also included! That's just too much obscure Euro-ecstasy for us to handle! Also to be included in the package will be a new documentary about Mr. Van Belle as well video introductions to the two films by the director. No idea yet when this will bow, but here's some quick screenshots to get you in the mood.






For more info, here's a previous Mondo Macabro blog post all about Jean-Louis. And of course here's his IMDB page, for what it's worth. More info will be presented here when we have it!!

Coming soon from Mondo Vision!

Coming Next Year, the fourth in Mondo Vision's spectacular series of Andrzej Zulawski Special Edition DVDs! Stay tuned for further details.