Wrong Way (1972)

Total down-n-dirty sleaze-fest here, folks. Drugs, rape-galore and a complete lack of production-value make "Wrong Way" an unabashedly shitty 'exploit'- entry.

Two girls are taking a shortcut down a deserted road when their car overheats and they have to pull over. Thankfully, there's a couple of horny hippies on a beer-run who lure the girls into their Jeep and bring 'em on back to their 'campsite' where they're toking up with some scummy bikers. Then - after a frenzied rape orgy - the hippies split, stranding the girls in the middle of the woods. While wandering around, they come across a cult of psychos... Then the movie ends with an inexplicably tacked on sub-plot with a couple of Mexicans 'fingercuffing' a chick in a motel room before getting into a deadly shootout with some cops...

As mean and trashy as this flick was - it's pretty boring and uninteresting, overall. Some truly horrid acting and filthy biker-hippies with clearly limp dicks and full-on reefer madness, humping away at a couple of hairy-bushed broads. Then that's pretty much it... Not the worst I've come across, but nothing stand-out as far as rapey '70s 'exploitation' goes...

Django Unchained (2012)

My appreciation for Quentin Tarantino pretty much fades after his early break-through gangster films, as he has since redirected his 'talents' toward just making overblown, tongue-n-cheek fanboy spectacles. Everything he's done - post-"Jackie Brown" - HAS to be a cartoonish, genre-inspired 'throwback' - constantly lacking the grittiness and writing/character-driven appeal of his first few (completed) films. "Django Unchained" was his 'Grindhouse' homage to spaghetti westerns...

Newly sold slave-boy, Django, is purchased and freed by a German bounty hunter who requires his help in tracking down some vicious plantation thugs. Things seem to go well for them in their travels so they team up and make a killing (pun very much intended...) in the bounty hunting game. Eventually, they figure they'll infiltrated Leonardo DiCaprio's plantation where Django's wife is serving as a "house nigger"...

Now, in all fairness, "Django Unchained" is the best 'western' I've seen. I hate 'westerns'. HATE them. I find the look and overall tone of them to be incredibly banal, repetitious and lame. Even the so-called "violent" ones people have tried recommending to me are never violent enough to make up for how expectedly bland and arid they end up being. John Wayne was one of the most irritatingly overrated actors in the history of film, as far as I'm concerned. Anyways... While I can't say that "Django Unchained" blew me away by any means - it had enough of that overly-stylized Tarantino violence and a decent enough plot to keep the almost 3-hour long runtime rolling along. That said, the characters were very one-dimensional and the gimmicky quick-zoom thing was annoying. It also could've scaled back on the comedy, I thought. So yeah, for a 'western' it was alright, but, obviously, I'm somewhat biased. As popular as they are and as much box-office 'draw' as his films amass, I personally haven't noticed Tarantino making a smooth transition from his early 'indie' efforts to Hollywood circut film-making. It all ended with the insipid "Kill Bill" saga - showing that he's just trying WAY too hard. Hell, I always feel more and more like I'm watching a long, ultra-expensive Superbowl ad with each Tarantino movie that comes out. It's like I'm just watching him and his fucked up chin throwing hundreds-of-millions of dollars around on screen for three hours.

Squirmfest (1989)

This is a pretty notorious title in the realm of Japanese "scat" films and in terms of what I was expecting, it completely met my expectations. I'm not exactly into scat flicks, but I like the "freak show" elements that derive from this type of shit...

"Squirmfest" starts with a chick eating an entire plate of night crawler-laced noodles, followed by a glass of milk - also filled with worms. She then plays piano while eventually taking a shit on the floor. Her instructor (I assume that's who he is) forces her to eat her maggot covered shit. There's some fucking, piss drinking, beetle eating, more fucking, shit-on-face, etc...

That's pretty much it. Nasty stuff. The scenario (piano teacher and student) doesn't really "work" due to the fact that the camera crew is visible in nearly every shot, but what do ya expect. Clearly, "Squirmfest" is hard one to track down and it's defiantly NOT WORTH tracking down unless you dig this type of "extreme" fetish filth.

Storm Warning (2007)

For a film directed by a man whose heyday was positioned primarily within the "Scream"-clone 'genre cesspool' of the late 90s-early 2000s - "Storm Warning" is an exceptionally entertaining "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"-inspired 'ozploit' horror flick.

A yuppie lawyer and his French wife take a dinghy out into the Australian waters and get lost. With a storm approaching, they pull off and go looking for assistance when they come across a typically unwelcoming looking farmhouse. While snooping around the property, they come across heaps of filth and a shed full of marijuana. Eventually, the inhabitants return home and are feeling less than hospitable...

Obviously, it's FAR from original and is pretty over-the-top at times, but still somehow manages to stay consistently enjoyable, throughout. The Aussie hillbillies are outrageously deranged and amusing - especially the horny, crazy-eyed old man - and there's a few really good (yet highly implausible...) death scenes. Let's just say, the people who're killed in this aren't just killed - they're fucking pulverized. The dick-eating dog was especially awesome. Good shit. Again, it's absolutely nothing 'new', but "Storm Warning" is a fun one.

ABCs of Death 2 (2014)

I enjoyed the first "ABCs of Death" anthology quite a bit. Definitely ranks among the best of it's kind I've seen and seemed to cater amply toward more "extreme" horror buffs with certain segments, I thought. Since seeing that, I was pretty stoked for the sequel and I must say - and some will argue - it tops it's predecessor.

Same set-up as the first film - 26 film-makers from around the world are asked to pick a letter of the alphabet and a word beginning with said letter and make a short film based on that word. Each installment is roughly 4-6 minutes in length and contains a prominent DEATH theme...

Some of the more notable shorts were "C is for Capital Punishment" - a guy is wrongfully executed - via sloppy axe beheading - for a crime he didn't commit. "D is for Deloused" - a stop-motion animated bit by Robert Morgan (known for "The Cat with Hands") about a dead guy who is resurrected by bugs to exact revenge on his killers. There's also another cool animated segment from Bill Plympton, which is a more chaotic and morbid take-off on his 1988 short, "How to Kiss". "J is for Jesus" was a decent one about some kind of 'angel' that is sent to protect a homosexual from a mob of God-fearing killer fag-haters and "S is for Split" was a pretty well-shot home invasion bit. One of the best, I thought, was "V is for Vacation" - a POV joint about a killer prostitute. "X" was cool, as it featured Béatrice Dalle, of "Inside" fame and THE best, hands down, was "Z" which was a brilliant fucking idea.

There's a few other good ones and some flat-out shitty ones - like, "F is for Falling" and Larry Fessenden's "N" segment - both were self-indulgent with very weak payoffs. Overall, I like these "ABCs" flicks and I hope they do more. They're basically just entertaining "samplings" of a wide range of film-makers and 'styles' with a hefty amount of gore, usually, so I can't see being too picky about it as a whole. Each segment is short so the discouraging looking 2-hour runtime actually goes by pretty fast, so I give "ABCs 2" a hearty rec. I know it's not everyone's "thing", but for the good bits it contains it's well worth a watch.

Hot Summer in the City (1976)

"Hot Summer in the City" is a decent blaxploitation/XXX-roughie. Not as 'nasty' as I usually prefer, but still sleazy enough to keep me somewhat entertained.

A teenage girl is dropped off after a date to find her mom getting boned by multiple dudes so she runs off. She's later found wandering the dark streets by a car-load of horny negros who chase her down and haul her back to the cabin where they're hiding out in preparation for a big race-war. There, they make their new honkey slut into their servant and gamble over who gets to fuck her - which ends up being pretty much all of them - including their retarded midget flunky  who usually just jerks off in the corner. Shit ends up hitting the fan when one of the guy's jealous black girlfriend shows up...

Not a bad 'hardcore' exploit- flick, overall. Wasn't really as 'rough' as it probably could've been, but it's full of interracial sexual abuse and whitey-hating jive talk - all you can and SHOULD expect from one of these 'blaxploit'-roughies. Not the best, but worth a look for uber-sleaze fans.