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Blu-ray Review: Endgame (1983)

In an even shittier version of New York than the 1980’s version this here flick was (supposedly) shot in, the city streets are crowded with punks, armored nazi security guards, mutants, and at times, more fog than 20 or more Fulci films. How do you pacify a destroyed city on the edge? Why by showing the people the eponymous Endgame; a program where contestants fight to the death among the ruins while wearing glam-rock face paint (and outrageous attire… for instance, Demons‘ Bobby Rhodes plays Woody; a contestant that dresses like a gladiator with a fabulous feather rimmed cape and an uzi… this shit is fucking tight n’ outta sight) for cash money in rather large amounts. The two best players: Ron Shannon (Zombi‘s Al Cliver) and Kurt Karnak (Big George Eastman… just start with Anthropophagus); former friends, now rivals who are ready to have their final skirmish… but before that can happen, Ron walks away from the contest after

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 16, 2022

Blu-ray Review: Raiders of Atlantis (1983)

Future Year 1994: Miami U.S. of A. and the sweet disco sounds of Black Inferno by the De Angelis brothers fills the air with the funkiest of fuckin’ funk! Why do I mention the De Angelis brothers at all, well the music that plays as our “heroes” straight up murder a dude in his home sounds a lot like a piece of the score from Anthony Margheriti’s Yor: The Hunter from the Future (which they also composed the music for)… wait, you want to know why those dudes killed that other dude? It’s because Mike Ross (a truly game Christopher Connelly, he of Fulci’s Manhattan Baby and Mattei’s Strike Commando fame) and his partner Mohammed (ne: Washington… though Ross still calls him “Wash”… or more accurately “Warsh”… in a (not so) stunning (because this was made in the early ’80s) and hilariously accented display of cultural insensitivity… oh, and he’s played by Tony King) are top-notch mercenaries employed by the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 10, 2022

Blu-ray Review: Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection (1972 – 1980)

Nuns… I’m indifferent to them, but some of you find them terrifying… or sexy… or both… and that last lil’ bit is what the folks over at Severin are counting on with their Blu-ray release of Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection! First up we get 1972’s Cristiana Devil Nun: After straight up fucking in front of everyone on an airplane, Cristiana (Toti Achilli) swears to become a nun if she can survive the sudden engine trouble (i.e. being totally engulfed in flame) the plane soon encounters at the stroke of her inauguration into the Mile High Club. True to her word she does indeed enter the convent, but being Cristiana she soon begins having sex like a mother fucker with both an ascot enthusiast of a painter as well as Sister Eleonora (Magda Konopka)… and once she sneaks her boyfriend into the covenant things go completely haywire as everyone’s constant fucking leads to questions of faith and endless debauchery! While

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 8, 2022
Horror Fuel

4K UHD Review: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

Slammin’ Sammy (Tony Musante) is one of those American “writer” types… he’s also completely devoid of the creative spark, so he’s parked his ass down ol’ Italia way in the hopes that a change of scenery will give his juices a jolt! Speaking of “jolting” things, our man Sam gets a real eyeful when he spies the ol’ murder biz goin’ down in a fancy-ass art gallery (really, there are seldom any other kind), but the victim, one Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi), turns the tables on her faceless assailant who flees into the night (but not before being a real prize-winning dickus to ol’ Sam and Mony-Mony via some electronic doors and slow torture). Enter: Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) who gives our man Sam-I-Am some static, as he holds the writer in Rome in the hopes he will help crack the case with the absolute unending terror he witnessed and all… but the killer at large is more than

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

4k Ultra-HD Review: Django (1966)

Django begins with a mother fuckin’ banger of an opening where our titular hero (Franco Nero) drags a coffin through a muddy hellscape as what is inarguably the greatest opening theme in the history of mother fuckin’ anything belts out of your speakers like a hot blast of lead to your eerie earholes! Soon Django comes upon Maria (Loredana Nusciak), a woman beleaguered by Mexican revolutionaries, subsequently rescued by a racist, ex-Confederate posse, and then put to the torch by the same… well, at least she would have been if not for the lightning gunwork of our hero, himself a soldier of the North at one time. The duo soon wander into a dilapidated nightmare of a town… a town caught in the middle of the war between those two faction mentioned up yonder, though the local saloon/whorehouse is considered neutral territory… and it’s there he runs afoul of the leader of those Confederate soldiers, Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo)… who’s

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Years Of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers 1973-1977

Coming from a period of massive social upheaval in 1970’s Italy, the “Years of Lead” as they were called, inspired filmmakers of the time to dip their toes in all-manner brutal crime pictures (the poliziotteschi genre), and our fine fiends at Arrow Video have collected some of them in the aptly named Years of Lead collection, a series of five films on Blu-ray that represent the era to a “T”! First up comes 1975’s Savage Three which concerns Turin-based computer programmer Ovidio (Joe Dallesandro), and his two pals Peppi (Guido Di Carli) and Giacomo (Gianfranco De Grassi); a trio of bored-ass mother fuckers that aren’t above starting a soccer riot, stealing a car, and riding folks down if they like their wheels better… ya know, just for kicks! Making matter worse, the men all have shitty home lives, and are in danger of being replaced by machines at work, which in turn fuels larger and larger crime sprees featuring those

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 13, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Deep Blood (1990)

There’s nothing like a good, fire roasted hot dog, and Raffaele Donato… or Joe D’Amato… must have thought so too as Deep Blood opens with what seems like an eternity of kids cooking hot dogs on a beach… hell, one of the scamps manages to use one as a shield to block his vision from the suns rays. Enter: a bum… or a “native American”… yes, those quotes are denoting some of my patented, award-losing sarcasm cats n’ creeps, as this dude looks to be nothing more than an old white guy in a beaded headband arrives and tells our wiener-hungry heroes that if they do a blood oath they can bring forth an evil spirit. Sounds legit. Moving forward a bit, that shit seems to have actually worked, as a mother and her young child stop for a swim in the middle of nowhere (speaking of “swimming”, although the characters are outside, the underwater shots of the kid swimming

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 16, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Hercules and the Captive Women (1961)

Affable, nonchalant, and totally sleepy-AF Hercules (Reg Park, in his debut in the role) sets sail (along with his son Hylas… who looks to be the same age as our star, and Timoteo the comedy-relief dwarf… who at the least is considerably shorter than our star) and to find out why the skies of Greece are occasionally redder than a baboon’s ass. One nasty storm later, and our heroes find themselves on an island where women are fused with stone walls, and within seconds Hercules has to tangle with a snake, a lion, a vulture, and a lizard man… like every other Tuesday. Anyway, Herc soon finds himself at the bee-hived mercy of Antinea the Queen of Atlantis (Fay Spain) who is making a race of eyebrow-less Aryan super-men thanks to a magic rock (which contains the blood of Uranus, which will undoubtedly prove to be a real pain in the ass)… do you people reading these things ever stop

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

4K Ultra HD Review: The New York Ripper (1982) and The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Those fine fiends over at Blue Underground are set to release their next wave of 4K Ultra goodness with two of Italy’s legendary fright flicks The New York Ripper (1982) and House by the Cemetery (1981)! Let’s let ‘er rip with the Ripper first! A dog discovers a severed hand in ol’ Manhattan town, and because this isn’t a Hanna-Barbera cartoon doesn’t immediately take on solving the murder mystery. Nope, that task falls on the world weary, prostitute fuckin’ shoulders of Lt. Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) who joins forces with psychoanalyst Dr. Paul Davis (Paolo Malco) to try and solve the case…and their asses better make like Sherlock Holmes toot-fucking-sweet ‘cuz the body count is getting rather high, as our duck-quacking psychopath carves up the ladies of The Big Apple like a Thanksgiving turkey! Holy hell is this one full-on sleazy, gory masterpiece boils n’ ghouls! Under he steady hand of maestro of mayhem, the legendary Lucio Fulci (who naturally

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Aug 22, 2020
Horror Fuel

Zombie (1979) – 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

Lucio Fulci’s seminal gut-muncher Zombie (or Zombi 2 as it is sometimes known, as in Italy it was released as a sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which is known there as Zombi…confused yet boils n’ ghouls?!!) has always been a favorite of your’s cruelly, and before we even get into the review proper I will whole-heartedly state that every horror hound, zombie lover, and gore aficionado should have this fright flick in their creepy collection…no excuses! For those unfamiliar with the film, the plot goes like this; Journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch) is called on to investigate a strange ship that drifted into the waters outside of Manhattan…a ship that seemingly contained flesh hungry zombies! Before long, Peter is joined by Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow), the daughter of the boat’s owner, and the duo make for the Caribbean to investigate just what in the hell happened to Anne’s father. Once there our heroes hook up with Brian Hull

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 19, 2020

More from Italian cinema

Blu-ray Review: Endgame (1983)

In an even shittier version of New York than the 1980’s version this here flick was (supposedly) shot in, the city streets are crowded with punks, armored nazi security guards, mutants, and at times, more fog than 20 or more Fulci films. How do you pacify a destroyed city on the edge? Why by showing the people the eponymous Endgame; a program where contestants fight to the death among the ruins while wearing glam-rock face paint (and outrageous attire… for instance, Demons‘ Bobby Rhodes plays Woody; a contestant that dresses like a gladiator with a fabulous feather rimmed cape and an uzi… this shit is fucking tight n’ outta sight) for cash money in rather large amounts. The two best players: Ron Shannon (Zombi‘s Al Cliver) and Kurt Karnak (Big George Eastman… just start with Anthropophagus); former friends, now rivals who are ready to have their final skirmish… but before that can happen, Ron walks away from the contest after

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 16, 2022

Blu-ray Review: Raiders of Atlantis (1983)

Future Year 1994: Miami U.S. of A. and the sweet disco sounds of Black Inferno by the De Angelis brothers fills the air with the funkiest of fuckin’ funk! Why do I mention the De Angelis brothers at all, well the music that plays as our “heroes” straight up murder a dude in his home sounds a lot like a piece of the score from Anthony Margheriti’s Yor: The Hunter from the Future (which they also composed the music for)… wait, you want to know why those dudes killed that other dude? It’s because Mike Ross (a truly game Christopher Connelly, he of Fulci’s Manhattan Baby and Mattei’s Strike Commando fame) and his partner Mohammed (ne: Washington… though Ross still calls him “Wash”… or more accurately “Warsh”… in a (not so) stunning (because this was made in the early ’80s) and hilariously accented display of cultural insensitivity… oh, and he’s played by Tony King) are top-notch mercenaries employed by the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 10, 2022

Blu-ray Review: Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection (1972 – 1980)

Nuns… I’m indifferent to them, but some of you find them terrifying… or sexy… or both… and that last lil’ bit is what the folks over at Severin are counting on with their Blu-ray release of Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection! First up we get 1972’s Cristiana Devil Nun: After straight up fucking in front of everyone on an airplane, Cristiana (Toti Achilli) swears to become a nun if she can survive the sudden engine trouble (i.e. being totally engulfed in flame) the plane soon encounters at the stroke of her inauguration into the Mile High Club. True to her word she does indeed enter the convent, but being Cristiana she soon begins having sex like a mother fucker with both an ascot enthusiast of a painter as well as Sister Eleonora (Magda Konopka)… and once she sneaks her boyfriend into the covenant things go completely haywire as everyone’s constant fucking leads to questions of faith and endless debauchery! While

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 8, 2022
Horror Fuel

4K UHD Review: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

Slammin’ Sammy (Tony Musante) is one of those American “writer” types… he’s also completely devoid of the creative spark, so he’s parked his ass down ol’ Italia way in the hopes that a change of scenery will give his juices a jolt! Speaking of “jolting” things, our man Sam gets a real eyeful when he spies the ol’ murder biz goin’ down in a fancy-ass art gallery (really, there are seldom any other kind), but the victim, one Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi), turns the tables on her faceless assailant who flees into the night (but not before being a real prize-winning dickus to ol’ Sam and Mony-Mony via some electronic doors and slow torture). Enter: Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) who gives our man Sam-I-Am some static, as he holds the writer in Rome in the hopes he will help crack the case with the absolute unending terror he witnessed and all… but the killer at large is more than

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

4k Ultra-HD Review: Django (1966)

Django begins with a mother fuckin’ banger of an opening where our titular hero (Franco Nero) drags a coffin through a muddy hellscape as what is inarguably the greatest opening theme in the history of mother fuckin’ anything belts out of your speakers like a hot blast of lead to your eerie earholes! Soon Django comes upon Maria (Loredana Nusciak), a woman beleaguered by Mexican revolutionaries, subsequently rescued by a racist, ex-Confederate posse, and then put to the torch by the same… well, at least she would have been if not for the lightning gunwork of our hero, himself a soldier of the North at one time. The duo soon wander into a dilapidated nightmare of a town… a town caught in the middle of the war between those two faction mentioned up yonder, though the local saloon/whorehouse is considered neutral territory… and it’s there he runs afoul of the leader of those Confederate soldiers, Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo)… who’s

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Years Of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers 1973-1977

Coming from a period of massive social upheaval in 1970’s Italy, the “Years of Lead” as they were called, inspired filmmakers of the time to dip their toes in all-manner brutal crime pictures (the poliziotteschi genre), and our fine fiends at Arrow Video have collected some of them in the aptly named Years of Lead collection, a series of five films on Blu-ray that represent the era to a “T”! First up comes 1975’s Savage Three which concerns Turin-based computer programmer Ovidio (Joe Dallesandro), and his two pals Peppi (Guido Di Carli) and Giacomo (Gianfranco De Grassi); a trio of bored-ass mother fuckers that aren’t above starting a soccer riot, stealing a car, and riding folks down if they like their wheels better… ya know, just for kicks! Making matter worse, the men all have shitty home lives, and are in danger of being replaced by machines at work, which in turn fuels larger and larger crime sprees featuring those

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 13, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Deep Blood (1990)

There’s nothing like a good, fire roasted hot dog, and Raffaele Donato… or Joe D’Amato… must have thought so too as Deep Blood opens with what seems like an eternity of kids cooking hot dogs on a beach… hell, one of the scamps manages to use one as a shield to block his vision from the suns rays. Enter: a bum… or a “native American”… yes, those quotes are denoting some of my patented, award-losing sarcasm cats n’ creeps, as this dude looks to be nothing more than an old white guy in a beaded headband arrives and tells our wiener-hungry heroes that if they do a blood oath they can bring forth an evil spirit. Sounds legit. Moving forward a bit, that shit seems to have actually worked, as a mother and her young child stop for a swim in the middle of nowhere (speaking of “swimming”, although the characters are outside, the underwater shots of the kid swimming

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 16, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Hercules and the Captive Women (1961)

Affable, nonchalant, and totally sleepy-AF Hercules (Reg Park, in his debut in the role) sets sail (along with his son Hylas… who looks to be the same age as our star, and Timoteo the comedy-relief dwarf… who at the least is considerably shorter than our star) and to find out why the skies of Greece are occasionally redder than a baboon’s ass. One nasty storm later, and our heroes find themselves on an island where women are fused with stone walls, and within seconds Hercules has to tangle with a snake, a lion, a vulture, and a lizard man… like every other Tuesday. Anyway, Herc soon finds himself at the bee-hived mercy of Antinea the Queen of Atlantis (Fay Spain) who is making a race of eyebrow-less Aryan super-men thanks to a magic rock (which contains the blood of Uranus, which will undoubtedly prove to be a real pain in the ass)… do you people reading these things ever stop

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

4K Ultra HD Review: The New York Ripper (1982) and The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Those fine fiends over at Blue Underground are set to release their next wave of 4K Ultra goodness with two of Italy’s legendary fright flicks The New York Ripper (1982) and House by the Cemetery (1981)! Let’s let ‘er rip with the Ripper first! A dog discovers a severed hand in ol’ Manhattan town, and because this isn’t a Hanna-Barbera cartoon doesn’t immediately take on solving the murder mystery. Nope, that task falls on the world weary, prostitute fuckin’ shoulders of Lt. Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) who joins forces with psychoanalyst Dr. Paul Davis (Paolo Malco) to try and solve the case…and their asses better make like Sherlock Holmes toot-fucking-sweet ‘cuz the body count is getting rather high, as our duck-quacking psychopath carves up the ladies of The Big Apple like a Thanksgiving turkey! Holy hell is this one full-on sleazy, gory masterpiece boils n’ ghouls! Under he steady hand of maestro of mayhem, the legendary Lucio Fulci (who naturally

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Aug 22, 2020
Horror Fuel

Zombie (1979) – 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

Lucio Fulci’s seminal gut-muncher Zombie (or Zombi 2 as it is sometimes known, as in Italy it was released as a sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which is known there as Zombi…confused yet boils n’ ghouls?!!) has always been a favorite of your’s cruelly, and before we even get into the review proper I will whole-heartedly state that every horror hound, zombie lover, and gore aficionado should have this fright flick in their creepy collection…no excuses! For those unfamiliar with the film, the plot goes like this; Journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch) is called on to investigate a strange ship that drifted into the waters outside of Manhattan…a ship that seemingly contained flesh hungry zombies! Before long, Peter is joined by Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow), the daughter of the boat’s owner, and the duo make for the Caribbean to investigate just what in the hell happened to Anne’s father. Once there our heroes hook up with Brian Hull

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 19, 2020
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