History of Women's Torture (1976)

"History of Women's Torture" is a pretty rough and sleazy 'pinku-eiga' film, geared heavily towards vaginal abuse/mutilation. The version I saw didn't contain subtitles so I pretty much had to bite the bullet and interpret the plot as much as I could based on the visuals, as my comprehension of the Japanese language is limited. Suffice to say, there was enough going on to keep me more-or-less engaged.

In a sort of episodic fashion (this flick is essentially an anthology), different eras throughout Japanese history are shown; each revolving around a woman who is violently punished for her slutiness. Such disciplinary actions include lots of bamboo rod beatings, barrel-rolling torture, candle torture, and vag-biting - among others. Nothing too out-of-the-ordinary seems to happen until at one point in the film when two women are captured and raped by some ninjas out in a desert. I have no idea... but okay.

So this one's considerably straight-forward - though some scenes tread into more 'gruesome' territory; namely a scene with a guy chopping a woman's vaginal skin up with a pair of shears and another guy sticking his lit pipe in a chick's 'nethers'. I'd suggest checking this one out for these scenes and, of course, 'pinku' queen, Naomi Tani. It's a slightly above average piece of sleazy goodness if you dig this kinda stuff.

Metalhead (2013)

"Metalhead" is a film I've been interested in checking out for a while, seeing as how I'm a metal fan, myself, and it's cool coming across movies featuring characters and story-lines surrounding this genre.Unfortunately, I wasn't all that impressed with this one. "Metalhead" IS a well shot and acted coming-of-age film, though it totally - and inexcusably - falls apart somewhere around the midway point.

Since witnessing the tragic death of her brother, a teenage Icelandic farm girl adopts her deceased sibling's love for metal, which has made her a pariah within her tiny religious community. She combats her unaccepting environment by acting out - such as playing loud metal over the intercom at work, slam-dancing at a town social and drunkenly hijacking neighbors' tractors. Her pudgy, sort-of boyfriend, whose tastes come nowhere near hers, isn't quite rocking her world and she eventually develops a crush on the new young priest after finding out he's a genuine metal fanatic. When he shoots down her advances, however, this prompts her to commit a much larger and more severe act of rebellion; fashioned after a budding genre she recently discovered: black metal.

It may come down to personal preference, but this movie takes a turn around the start of the third act that I found to be a major cop-out and incredibly cornball. The outcome of this film is just so damn 'warm and fuzzy' and jovial all of a sudden that I was almost certain I had been duped into watching an After School Special. I hate to come across like a grump who hates upbeat endings - however, "Metalhead" nose dives into such an implausible, out-of-left-field finale that really packs NO punch, whatsoever. That said, the cinematography and performances are solid. Had it not been for the weak final portion of the film, I'd be giving this one a moderate rec. Hate to say - this one's a disappointment.

Black Mass of the Nazi Sex Wizard (2015)

I've covered Lucifer Valentine's other movies in the past and, considering that this one is no different than any of them, I'm going to keep this very brief.

Puke-loving hack 'edgelord', Valentine, pays more junkie whores to call him "master" and degrade themselves on camera in hotel rooms. Amidst the rapid editing and meaningless, distorted voice-overs (a common trait of his shit) are two-and-a-half minutes of disclaimers that kick things off - slowly read by one of his crackwhore 'subjects'. Then we get into chicks deep-throating dildos, puking in bathroom sinks, toilets and bathtubs. There's random clips of old, public domain Christmas cartoons, a cat on the sidewalk, girls cutting themselves, more puke, piss drinking and eyeball gouging/cranial mutilation.

Honestly, the gore effects started out okay, but the no-talent fucko, Valentine, goes and shows it way too long in close-ups to the point where it starts looking incredibly fake. As far as the rest, it's just another one of his "vomit gore" movies. Boring, completely UN-shocking and self-indulgent.

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things (1971)

I'm not entirely sure how to tackle this one. We're talkin' some real oddball 'grindhouse', homo-hippie, crime/comedy/horror mash-up shit that I'm not even sure how to go about rating.

Having pulled off some murder/robbery in Baltimore, two criminals are holed up in a suburban Miami house with their stashed box of stolen jewellery. The one guy's 'cover' is dressing in drag and acting as the other guy's aunt. Their relationship seems to mainly involving the one - clearly more immature guy  getting bawled out like an unruly child for hanging out with doped up hippies and him panicking whenever a chick tries to get his pants off. This usually prompts "Aunt Martha" to murder these girls out of jealousy. The 'arc' kicks in when a junkie rents out a room in their house and starts nosing around for the stolen loot.

"Sometimes Aunt Martha..." is a goofy and mildly entertaining slice of '70s drive-in trash-cinema that could almost pass as a scaled back and sedated early John Waters film with a much more subdued and unconvincing transvestite lead. The relationship between the main characters almost has a sit-com vibe at times or some kind of dark, LSD-fueled remake of "Some Like It Hot". There's also clearly a gay subtext to the film; as these guys are shown to sleep in the same bed (though nothing else is 'explored' as far as that) and one guy angrily de-pantses and nuzzles the other during the films big 'climax' which seemed pretty 'open-and-shut' as far as I'm concerned. There's also an weird portion of the movie dedicated to the C-sectioning of an infant from a dead woman. In closing, this is a strange flick that I can't go so far as to recommend unless you find yourself in a particularly 'open' state-of-mind and are down for 'acid trip'-style flicks of this time period. I'd say it's worth a laugh just for how strange it is.

America's Deadliest Home Video (1993)

Here's a largely forgotten 'found-footage' flick that, according to record, pre-dates "Man Bites Dog" (1992) by a year based on when it was made. Both films are in relatively the same vein in being crime-comedy 'mock-docs' and neither of which being very good. Still, "America's Deadliest Home Video" is oddly interesting for the mere sake of it being a scrap of long discarded FF mediocrity - the likes of which, as we all know, became a Hollywood horror go-to a decade or so after.

 A dweeby schmo discovers his wife is cheating on him so he hits the road with his camcorder - keeping a video journal of his cross-country trip. While visiting a quarry, he's caught filming some people ditching a car over the edge and is forced into joining them in documenting their convenience store robbing crime spree. Along the way, the cameraman and the gang leader's chick start hitting it off and tensions rise...

Generally, I'm not at all a fan of the 'found-footage/mockumentary/faux snuff/etc.'-style of film-making, but I can definitely credit this one as being quite a bit ahead of its time. Hell, far weaker films of this type went on to gross unfathomable sums of box-office scratch ("Paranormal Activity"...), so this was clearly just a flick that was made at the wrong time and slipped into obscurity (until Camp Motion Pictures dredged it up). It's a pretty boring movie with mostly quick scenes of gas station hold-ups and a lot of motel room hang-outs. Strangely, Danny Bonaduce stars in this, which goes to show how far in the shitter his career was by this point. As for the plus side, a pretty sexy female character gets naked once or twice so there was that. Otherwise, there's no real noteworthy violence or gore. If you're hard-core into FF then you may want to check this out, but otherwise there's no need to pick this one up.

Fight for Your Life (1977)

Gotta give it up for this notoriously un-PC gem straight out of the good old days of true-blue 'exploitation' cinema.

A trio of convicts escape from their paddy wagon and car-jack their way to Upstate New York where they rob a liquor store and wind up holding a black family captive in their home. Things get heated between the apparent leader of the band of criminals - a prodigiously racist slack-jaw - and the father - a painfully passive minister as the family look for any conceivable ways to protect themselves from their unwanted guests.

Though not quite as down-n-dirty as some other films of its ilk, like "I Spit on Your Grave" and "House on the Edge of the Park" - there's certainly a lot of fun to be had with "Fight for Your Life". Of course, the racially-charged violence/indignity is a big 'theme' in the film - doled out by the main creep whose character is honestly as hilarious as he is hateable at times. Those who are irrevocably sensitive to racist language may disagree and that's fine. You also got a dash of kid killing, fairly harsh killings and some off-screen rape that sparks a violent showdown in the flick's climax that is nothing short of satisfying. In all, this one is very entertaining. There's a healthy dose of tension, nasty violence, adequately unpleasant antagonists and a nice revenge angle to bring everything together. "Fight for Your Life" may not be the greatest 'exploitation' joint out there, but there's enough fun, offensive shit here to sink your teeth into.