Abby (1974) starring Carol Speed, Terry Carter, William Marshall, and Austin Stoker. Directed by William Girdler.
Synopsis: Bishop Garnet Williams (Marshall) is in Egypt on a mission to uncover antiquities and information about the God Eshu, but little does he know he has released the spirit on the world. It travels halfway around the world to Kentucky where Abby (Carol Speed) and her husband Rev. Emmett Williams (Carter) are moving into a new house. Abby becomes possessed by the evil spirit, and she begins to act strangely. The first sign that something is wrong appears when she purposely cuts her own arm. Then she begins to act violently, lashing out at her husband. Soon her voice changes entirely as Abby is consumed by the demon. Emmett does everything he can to help her, but there is nothing he can do. He must call his father back from Egypt to help him exorcise the demon from Abby's soul.
The Bugg Picture: Hitting the screen in 1974, Abby was obviously intended to cash in on the success of The Exorcist (1973), and Warner Brothers Studio even managed to file a successful complaint against the film causing it to be pulled from markets. The picture had even been somewhat of a success raking in over four million dollars before it was pulled. It's really too bad this film has still been suppressed and unable to reach a wide audience as it's really a good flick with an interesting premise.
Carol Speed does an admirable job as Abby. As she descends into possession she cries, foams at the mouth, thrashes around, and lashes out all with equal abandon. Ms. Speed didn't make another film for five years after Abby until she appeared in Disco Godfather with the great Rudy Ray Moore. If the film had gotten out to a proper audience, I believe this could have easily made her a star of the cult movie screen. Terry Carter and William Marshall both turn in believable performances as the father and son. Many may remember Marshall as the King of Cartoons from Pee Wee's Playhouse, and I guess you may have heard of a film called Blackula. Terry Carter, who also appeared in Foxy Brown, would become part of a different kind of cult when he took on the role of Colonel Tigh on the short-lived Battlestar Galactica series in 1978.
I'd like to take a second to talk about William Girdler. Although he only made nine films in his short career, almost every one of them is a piece of genre movie gold. Starting with 1972's Three on a Meathook, the Pam Grier Film Sheeba Baby in '75, Grizzly and the Leslie Neilson action vehicle Project: Kill in '76, and ending his career with Day of the Animals (1977) and The Manitou (1978). Sadly, Girdler passes away in 1978, and even though Abby had been his biggest success, he never saw a dime from the project due to the lawsuit.
The movie itself is pretty dang entertaining. With some decent acting going on, the story of Abby's decent into possession is enthralling. Sure, it doesn't make much sense that the spirit would travel around the world and just happen to find the Bishop's daughter-in-law Sure it doesn't make much sense that her husband thinks his wife just needs a doctor when she begins to talk three octaves lower and in another voice. Sure, all of this is true, and so is the fact that I sure as hell didn't give a damn. Horror movie fans will find some interesting shots and a good story of possession. Blaxploitation fans will find some of the greatest actors from the period packed into this forgotten gem. What you won't find here is a copycat story. Warner Brothers would never win that suit in this day and age, but it was a different time then. So check this film out and give it the viewers it was cheated out of so many years ago,
Blazing Bullets (a.k.a Blazing Flowers) starring Marc Porel, George Hilton, Al Cliver, and Mario Novelli. Directed by Gianni Martucci.
Synopsis: Pino (Porel) is a nice young man who just happens to be getting out of jail after a 6 year stint for armed robbery. Pino Scalise is also a heck of a driver, but those days are behind him. As he leaves the jail in Sicily, he heads out for a new life with his uncle in Milan. He even gets a job driving, but just loads of flowers this time.
Pino begins to settle in to his new life, and his uncle sends him out for a night on the town. Running into an old underworld friend, Pino spends a night in a high class brothel with a beautiful woman. It's not until later he discovers the woman, Firoella, is actually his cousin Mariana. Furious that his cousin is being kept as a prostitute, he makes connections to get her freedom with the head of the local mafia, Don Chicco. A deal is struck, and Pino must take the wheel for one last job.
The Bugg Picture: The original Italian title to this film, Milano... difendersi o moiré, is roughly translated to mean "Milan to defend themselves or to die". I think this gives a better picture to what the movie is than the American or UK re-titles. This is the age old tale of a criminal trying to stay on the straight and narrow, and being forced back into crime for noble reasons. Some would say I left a giant hole in my synopsis when I failed to bring in George Hilton's hard edged cop, Inspector Morani. While I enjoyed Hilton's performance, the film really takes its cues and center from the story of Pino Scalise.
Writer/Director Gianni Martucci has only five credits in his directing career with the last being 1988's The Red Monk produced by Lucio Fulci. I bring this up because there is a strong Fulci connection throughout this film. Lead actor Marc Porel appeared in The Psychic and Don't Torture a Duckling, George Hilton in Massacre Time, Al Cliver of Zombi 2 shows up here as a smooth criminal, and The New Gladiators' Mario Novelli rounds it out as the hood who gets Pino back in the life. Even cinematographer Gianni Ferrio has a Fulci connection as he was the shooter for the Fulci/Lenzi mess of a film Zombi 3, but don't hold that against him. Here he provides some amazing shots which showcase the actors and the beauty of Milan perfectly.
This is the kind of Euro-Crime flick that I like. There's a good main story, and lots of nice subplots. There are beautiful women and the screen oozes with style from both of the sexes. It's got fistfights, shootouts, and car crashes a plenty. It's got criminals with cool names like Nosey and Domino. Then there's the evocative soundtrack of Gianni Ferrio which comes across more like the soundtrack to a film noir, and grants Blazing Bullets a sense of grandness. This feeling juxtaposes the mundane life Pino craves with the criminal life he must bear. I would be remiss if I did not mention this. There's the most amazing cigarette dispenser I've ever seen about thirty minutes into the film. So if you like action, Euro-crime, or Poliziotteschi flicks, check this one out. It's almost like an offer you can't refuse.
Calling All Police Cars (1975) [Italian: .a tutti le auto della polizia] (a.k.a The Maniac Responsible) starring Antonio Sabato, Luciana Paluzzi, Enrico Maria Salemo. Directed by Mario Caiano.
Synopsis: When the daughter of a prominent university professor goes missing, he calls in all his favors to put the entire police force on the case. Heading up the investigation are Inspector Nunziante (Paluzzi), Comissionario Solmi (Sabato), and police chief Carraro (Salemo), but with no leads and no clues, the cops are puzzled. When they finally get a lead pointing them to a teenage prostitution ring, they think the case is about to break, but instead it only gets more puzzling. This is compounded when a killer begins stalking people connected to the missing girl. The cops must race time and the killer's blade to find the underlying cause of it all.
The Bugg Picture: Calling All Police Cars could be easily discounted as another run of the mill film in the Polizi genre, but director Caiano mixes up the formula just enough to create something original. For the first half of the film, it plays out like a standard Euro-Crime film with a heavy emphasis on the procedural and forensic investigation. Then right over the halfway mark, it moves into giallo territory with an unknown assailant stalking several pretty girls. This could have felt forced or clumsy, but it makes sense with the story as the murders begin to happen as the investigation heats up.
The cops in this flick seem to act as one character, and this brought to mind crime fiction author Ed Mc Bain's 87th Precinct novels. I do have to say there were some officers that stood out. Comissionario Solmi, played by Antonio Sabata (father of Antonio Sabata Jr. who, well, actually I don't know why he's famous) could not have been more of the Italian Burt Reynolds if he tried. All I'm saying is the 'stache is perfection. It is also nice seeing Luciana Paluzzi, the former Bond girl from Thunderball, showing that she is more than just a pretty face as Inspector Nunziante. Some may also recognize Enrico Maria Salemo from his turn in Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.
All in all, this a Polizi that tried to defy conventions and for the most part it worked. Riding along on a score from composer Coriolano Gori, who also scored Mario Bava's film Four Times That Night, the film propels at a breakneck pace, and it only gets bogged down when they delve a tad too far into the procedural elements. Even these scenes were interesting to check out the archaic forensic lab. It's a far cry from Gil Grissom's digs, but if a cross between CSI and What Have You Done To Solange? sounds interesting to you then pick up this hard to find Euro-Crime gem and enjoy.
Crazy Killer a.k.a Massacres (1991) starring Charlie Boorman, Pierre Clemente, Eva Mazauric, and Wilfred Benaiche. Directed by Jean-Claude Roy.
Synopsis: When Ronnie (Boorman), a well dressed French killer incurs sizeable gambling debt, he is sent on a mission for the mob to deliver a case to Korea in exchange for a clearing of his marker. He arrives and meets Ventura (Benaiche), his contact, who is in the deal for his own purposes. Soon Ronny is faced with a decision, join up with Ventura in a counterfeiting scam or get hung out to dry. Ronny feels he has no choice but to take part, and the two begin to seek ways to raise capitol. It comes to their sadistic minds that with Ronnie's talents as a killer they should make snuff films. They begin to kill girls on film, and their murderous ways attract the attention of both Inspector Verdier of INTERPOL (Clemente) and the Korean mob.
The Bugg Picture: Charlie Boorman, son of famed director John, once played the boy version of Mordred in his father's film Excalibur, but in Crazy Killer he comes off more like the bastard child of Patrick Bateman and Andrew McCarthy. Within seconds of his character's appearance on screen he has already dispatched one victim, and it gives the audience a great idea of who this guy is. He gives a fine performance throughout, but I give a big nod to Benaiche for his sleazy portrayal of Ventura. From his greasy hair to his terrible clothes to his slimy delivery, I had no problem believing his character.
The first part of the film can drag a bit, but when the movie changes gears to become less about Ronnie and his snuff films to focusing on the mob and cops coming after him, it really gets going . This is helped out by a very nice scene of gore near the conclusion of the film. Crazy Killer is the first (and last) mainstream picture from former adult director Jean Claude Roy, and that's too bad. His mixture of sadism, crime, and humor left me wondering what he would have done next. So if you like crime, perversion, crazy killers or just those wacky French , check this one out.
Deadlock (1970) starring Mario Adorf, Anthony Dawson, Marquard Bohm, and Mischa Rabben. Directed by Roland Klick.
Synopsis: A man wanders through the desert with a suitcase. His arm is bleeding from a gunshot. He is exhausted. Passing out from the heat and blood loss, he lays prone until Charles Dump (Adorf), a loner living in the shell of an abandoned mining camp, finds him passed out in the middle of nowhere. Dump checks the man's luggage and finds it filled with millions of dollars. Taking the man and the money back to his camp, Charles thinks he might have finally hit it rich.
The man, 'Kid' (Bohm), finally wakes and warns Charles that Anthony Sunshine, the money's owner, would come looking for it. Sure enough, Sunshine (Dawson) comes down on them, hot on the trail of his cash. A game of cat and mouse begins with everyone working for their own purposes. The time for splitting shares long past, only one man can walk away with the suitcase.
The Bugg Picture: This German picture is a wealth of surprises, and genre film fans can find a lot to like here. It's got some great acting by Mario Adorf (the crazed painter in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) as Charles Dump. Playing a washed up, desperate individual, his performance balanced his despicable toadying nature and the pain that it causes him. Then there is Anthony Dawson as Sunshine and Marquard Bohm as 'Kid'. Dawson does a nice job as the menacing Sunshine bringing to the role an energy that reminded me very much of Harry Dean Stanton. Speaking of reminding, Marquard Bohm struck me as looking like a bargain basement Mick Jagger, but his turn as the young face of crime added the perfect last piece to the trinity of thugs.
There's also the directing. While I am not familiar with director Klick or cinematographer Robert van Ackeren, they gave this movie a look which brought images to mind of everything from John Ford, to Peckinpah, to Leone. While the Negev Desert in Israel stood in for the American West and this was certainly no period film, the influence of the Western on it is undeniable. The film also shares some of the tone with the recent classic No Country for Old Men, but where that film relied on stark quiet to augment the tension, Deadlock is graced with a rather interesting and modern soundtrack from German art rockers, Can. This is a really cool hidden gem, and any fans of Euro-Crime, Westerns, Thrillers, or even Art Films will find something to like here. Pick this one up and spread the word.
Fata/Morgana (1965) (a.k.a Left Handed Fate) starring Teresa Gimpera, Marianne Benet, Marcos Marti, Antonio Ferrandis, and Alberto Dalbes. Directed by Vincente Aranda.
Synopsis: This is the story of Gim (Gimpera), a beautiful model hounded by her own looks and a feeling of impending doom, of Agent J.J (Marti), tasked with tracking down an elusive killer, and of The Professor (Ferrandis), a lecturer on the characteristics of victims. This is the story of how their lives will cross.
On the deserted streets of the city, Gim is constantly bothered by men wanting to take her home or save her. She rebuffs them all, only caring for the one man she cannot have. After a blind man foretells of her impending death, her already paranoiac world begins to spin out of control. There seems to be no where to turn as each person she trusts reveals a dark secret or hidden desire. Agent J.J. is desperately seeking Gim to prevent her murder, but can he believe the information he receives from his masked informant? And then there is The Professor who from his lectern, knows the victim, knows the killer, and knows more than he is letting on.
The Bugg Picture: Fata/Morgana is a film which came out of a very interesting period of Spain's history. Having just come out from under the dictatorship of Franco, Spanish artists, writers, and film makers were making the most of their new freedoms. Director Vincente Aranda was a self taught director, and Fata/Morgana was his second feature film. In this film Aranda explores some major themes; victimization, the images of advertising, and even the clichés of thriller cinema. He explores each one in a way that will leave you thinking about them long after the film is done.
The strength of this film rests mostly on Gimpera and her portrayal of Gim. She plays the put upon beauty very well, and it's a character that could easily be mismanaged into an unsympathetic mess. The scenes where Gim is hit on by men on the street and even an armored car come off very amusing. When Gim ends up being followed by a gaggle of teenage boys like they were avatars of teenage lust, the movie provides some much needed wit in the midst of some heady topics. Antonio Ferrandis provides a great character as well in The Professor. As his character unfolds and we meet the sinister master of disguise behind the academic, the layers of complexity made me want to rewatch his performance again right away.
When you couple all these factors with a swinging jazz score by Antonio Perez Olea, who would work with Aranda again on his surreal genre picture "The Blood Spattered Bride", and taut cinematography by Aurelio Larraya, this film really comes together. There is so much more I would love to say about this picture, but you really need to see it for yourself. Part spy picture, part social commentary, part thriller, and all fun, this is a film that should grace the shelves of any Europhile out there.
Io Zombo, Tu Zombi, Lei Zomba (1979) starring Renzo Montagnani, Cochi Ponzoni, Nadia Cassini, Gianfranco D'Angelo. Directed by Nello Rossati.
Synopsis: Three men are involved in a fatal car crash and taken to the local cemetery for burial. The Gravedigger is in no rush, and he figures his customers are not as well. So he sits back and reads aloud from a horror novel about voodoo. As he recites the incantation of the zombie, the three men in the caskets get brought back to life. The Gravegdigger turns to see them sitting up and dies from fright, but the zombies return the favor and soon all four of the men are the living dead. With no experience on how to be a zombie, they refer to the novel and learn that human flesh is their new sustenance. After several failed attempts at snaring a victim, they take over a hotel intending to have their patrons for dinner.
The Bugg Picture: This is a very entertaining film, even if I understood only a small fraction of the dialog. That's right, this one is such a hard to find gem that it's still fully in Italian. That's ok though. As with a lot of European comedy from this era, it is very broadly played, and the movie works on a pure physical level. From their failed attempts at capturing some lunch to their hotel business and the final showdown in the mall, these zombies will be unlike any you've ever seen. There are a great many homage's to George Romero's work that the savvy viewer will pick up on, and the mall scenes definitely are there to turn Dawn of the Dead on its ear. So don't fear the language barrier, pick this one up and check out the only zombies I know of that are more afraid of us than we are of them.
The Pencil Murders (De Potsloodmororden) (1982) starring Leslie de Gruyter, Bert Andre, and Rosemarie Bergmans. Directed and Witten by Guy Lee Thys.
Synopsis: A killer stalks the dark streets of Belgium preying on beautiful women. It's up to Inspector Rick Van Houtte (Leslie de Gruyter) to track down the killer before he strikes again, but Rick has hit hard times, With his judgment clouded by his philandering wife and a lack of leads, Rick struggles to keep his head in the case. When he strikes up a friendship with Crime Scene photographer, Vertommen (Bert Andre), it inspires the Inspector to get his life together, and Rick finally gets on the trail of The Pencil Killer.
The Bugg Picture: I don't know that much about what comes from Belgium. When I thought about it all I could really come up with is Waffles and Van Damme. So when I approached The Pencil Murders, I didn't know quite what to expect. What I got was a fairly enjoyable film that took some of its cues from Italian gialli. You've got your black gloves, some blood, a strange murder weapon, and a dollop of sleaze. When you drop these genre standards into a film which feels neither Italian nor French, you get a very distinctive feel in the film that I must assume was Belgian.
While the film was in French, I found both de Gruyter and Andre both very charismatic on screen. I found it something of a heroic performance from de Gruyter as it was so easy to pick up on the changes of his character even without the dialog. He skillfully transforms from a man filled with dread and ennui into a tightly wound cop simmering with barely contained rage. One of the sources of his character's rage is his wife, played rather sexily by Rosemarie Bergmans. She has a very arresting kind of beauty, and it is easy to see why she had quite a career in Belgian TV.
Anyone interested in how the cross pollination of Italian cinema made an impact on the rest of European genre cinema should check out this film. It's a good example of how the basic forms can take on a different life with even some minor geographical changes. Plus people get taken out by a killer with a pencil. Do I really need to say more?
Twilight Pink (1981) starring Veronica Hart, Richard Kerman, Bill McKean, and Annie Sprinkles. Directed by Robert Michaels (as Travis St. Germaine).
Synopsis: We are introduced to the story of Ferdinand "Ferdy" Hooper (Richard Kerman) by our host Sterling Rod. It seems that life is about to change for Ferdy. For today he is a loser working as a Prize Consultant for Wheatos Cereal, but now he has entered a different place called "The Erogenous Zone".
As our tale starts, Ferdy's newest campaign gets upstaged by a junior executive, he's the laughing stock of the office, and he can't get a date. When his boss Miss. Roxxoff (Hart) rejects his newest advertising campaigns, he is fired from his job. Just when things are at their worst, he gets a call from his friend Jake who claims to have a magical watch to show him. Jake demonstrates that the watch stops time for any reason, but it is especially effective for sex. When ladies get into the watch's field they get horny, really horny, and all their inhibitions melt away. Jake, just before he died, bequeathed his watch and fortune to Ferdy.
Then Ferdy begins to remake his life. First he uses the watch's power to make a couple have sex right on the street. Then he moves on to other targets. He gets back at one of the bitchy secretaries when he stops time and takes her to an S&M club, but even a month later, he still has his sights set on getting back at Miss. Roxxoff. When he finally gets to her, will it be his crowning moment or will this be his undoing?
The Bugg Picture: This is porn right on the edge of the end of an era. Once the eighties were in full swing, features like this would be a thing of the past as the home video market would take over. Porn would begin its steady decline into slick, plastic mediocrity. This is still the era of blue movies where bodies were not perfect, hair was not taboo, and the story was still half the fun.
The film's two main stars are both legends in their own rites. Robert Kerman a.k.a. R. Bolla or Richard Bolla would appear in over 100 XXX films. Yet most genre movie fans may know him from his roles in Italian cannibal films such as Cannibal Holocaust or Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox. He even turned up in a small role as a tugboat captain in 2002's Spider Man. Kerman is genuinely entertaining here, and his acting is every bit as good as in mainstream fare. Veronica Hart was one of the biggest names in adult film of the 1970's and in her career she appeared in over 130 such flicks. In recent years she has become a producer of adult titles as well as making some appearances in mainstream film. Her life was the inspiration for part of Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights, and Anderson would later cast Hart for a part in his film Magnolia.
The best part of this flick is the story. The sex is varied, and I do mean varied. Be prepared for some strange stuff at times. Anyone who is a fan of modern porn will probably find the lack of graphic close-ups and short length of scenes unsuited to their tastes, but I found most of them quite interesting as examples of erotic film. The main plotline is obviously ripped from the Twilight Zone episode "A Kind of Stopwatch", and anyone who knows the episode will find the ending predictable. This is a film that is really one of the last of its kind. With the advent of video, production values plummeted and any kind of semblance to a story is discarded for the most part in modern pornography. Check this one out to remember when it wasn't porn and it was Adult Film. A time when the men were average, the boobs were real, and it was ok to like the stories.
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