Live Review: The Mack (1973)

 

Slaughter (1972)

I have to admit, prior to seeing SLAUGHTER, I wasn’t much of a Jim Brown fan. I had only seen him previously in films like THE DIRTY DOZEN, ICE STATION ZEBRA and the ultra-campy MARS ATTACKS, where he didn’t really play the lead role, but a supporting player, so I had yet to be impressed. After watching SLAUGHTER, color me impressed. In fact this movie grabbed me in just the first few seconds with the sounds of a gnarly fuzz tone guitar wail (which Quentin Tarantino would snatch up and use in his film, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS to great effect). It’s such a meaty guitar sound that I wondered if Black Sabbath might be providing the theme song, but after a few more seconds the funk slides in, and I realize it’s none other than the legendary Billy Preston providing the kick ass theme song. I knew then and there that even if the movie sucked, I would enjoy it because of the music alone.

To read the rest of the review, click here.

Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973)

SCREAM, BLACULA, SCREAM is a sequel to the original landmark black horror flick, BLACULA--although it’s the kind of sequel that can stand on it’s own. If you’re curious about the origins of Blacula, don’t worry, they wrap it up in a nice flashback about 20 minutes in.

I am a fan of William Marshall, and his performance as Blacula in both films, but I’ve found the “Blacula” movies themselves to be unremarkable. The original BLACULA is a fun little flick and it has some good moments, but ultimately I've always felt it was lacking. SCREAM, BLACULA, SCREAM is better in a few ways, but it also suffers a bit due to a lack of an interesting plot…a plot that is very predictable from the get go.

To read the rest of the review, click here.
WARNING: N.S.F.W.--due to a gratuitous shot of Pam Grier's tit-tays!

Boss N[CENSORED]r (1975)

For a honkey like myself to review a movie called “Boss Nigger”, I may have to examine more than just the movie itself. For one, the movie no longer has the “N” word in the title. The DVD release of the film is just simply called BOSS. In the world we live in today, putting a DVD on a store shelf with the word “Nigger” in the title would simply just not fly. From a certain standpoint this would seem like a good thing—seeing as “nigger” is a racist term and probably should not be in the vocabulary of anybody because of what it represents, and the less it is used the better. Again this is just one viewpoint on this issue, which I don’t feel is necessarily right or wrong. Another view would be, why was it acceptable in the 70’s and not now? Racism was stronger in the 70’s than it is now, that’s a given, but I would like to think there is a tad less racism in America today (we did just elect a black man to run our country after all), but the movie itself is not a racist movie, in fact it could be considered an anti-racism movie.

To read the rest of the review, click here.

Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)

COTTON COMES TO HARLEM is a kick-ass blaxploitation/crime flick about two bad ass detectives named, Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones....do you really need any more information than that? Yes? Okay, fine, here's the review.

Ganja & Hess (1973)

My 3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month starts now! My first offering (an old review that I've touched up a bit) is one of my all time favorite movies and one weird mamma-jamma.

Though the film is about a vampire, it is like no other vampire film that I've ever seen. Vampirism is only a metaphor for addiction in this film, and the film is filled with metaphors. There is not a lot of dialogue either. The director, Bill Gunn, mostly relies on visuals to tell the story, which no doubt will baffle most casual film goers (it baffled me for the first half of the film--the plot is not told in a linear fashion). The cinematography and directing were way ahead of its time, and its influence on later films is obvious. For the most part, the film comes off like a fever dream, and does not--for one second, apologize for it's strangeness. If you get it, you'll love it, if you don't, you probably won't.

To read the rest of the review, click here.

Sinful Cinema podcast is here!!!

It's here kiddies! The SINFUL CINEMA podcast has been unleashed!! Episode #1 is up and ready--I must warn, it is heart-stoppingly-exciting, so folks with pacemakers and heart conditions may want to take heed. In all seriousness, this is the first podcast from T.L. Bugg (The Lightning Bug's Lair) and myself, and we're a bit nervy. I promise we'll get better with time. Without further ado...

Links:

Mad in Italy Facebook page

Cinema de Bizarre

email us at sinfulcinema@charter.net

Sinful Cinema podcast w/T.L. Bugg and The Rev!

Well it's official....T.L. Bugg and yours truly will be doing a Horror and Exploitation themed podcast entitled, SINFUL CINEMA. Should have the first episode posted midweek. It's a bit rough, but once we get more comfortable doing these...we'll be UNSTOPABLE!!! More info to come...

Supervixens (1975)

SUPERVIXENS could be looked at as Russ Meyer's salute to the films of…well, Russ Meyer. Allow me to explain. Most of the characters and even some scenes are call backs to his previous films (Meyer would only make 2 more films after SUPERVIXENS, not including the non-movie PANDORA's PEAKS). For example, there's a character is the film called SuperCherry, a reference to the Cherry character in CHERRY, HARRY and RAQUEL. In fact most of the women in the film are names of characters from previous films with 'super' added to them. So needless to say, SUPERVIXENS would not be a good movie to start with, if you're wanting an introduction to Russ Meyer, but it can stand alone as well---it's just more fun if you've seen a few of the other films that I mentioned, first. The film could almost be a spoof of Meyer's previous work which shows what a great sense of humor about himself and his films. 

To read the rest of the review, click here. 
(WARNING: NSFW)

So ends Russ Meyer Month at Midnight Confessions. I would have liked for more of my reviews to have been live reviews, but the computer that I use for my live reviews is acting real bitchy lately. For February, I will be starting my 3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month and I couldn't be more excited. I've had so much fun exploring these films in the past, and this year shouldn't be any different. I'll be posting some old reviews, some new and hopefully a live one or two.   

Russ Meyer's Motor Psycho (1965)

MOTOR PSYCHO does not get as much attention as some of Russ Meyer’s other films, though it really should. It was released the same year as Meyer’s epic, FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!, and even though that film went on to be a bigger scale cult classic, MOTOR PSYCHO actually did better at the box office back in ‘65. Better box office or not, FASTER, PUSSYCAT has cast in an incredible shadow over MOTOR PSYCHO—and rightfully so. Not that MOTOR PSYCHO is a bad movie (it’s great), but when put next to Tura Satana and the gang, it didn’t stand a chance. 

To read the rest of the review, click here.

From the vault: Beyond the Darkness (1979)

From the perverse mind of Joe D'Amato comes BEYOND THE DARKNESS aka BUIO OMEGA. D'Amato, for those of you that don't know, is mainly known for making schlock. He has some crappy films on his résumé, but the man is also known for having moments of greatness--this film is one of those moments. Arguably his best film, BEYOND THE DARKNESS is full of excellent gore, nudity, some cannibalism, a great score by Goblin, and an all around dark and surreal atmosphere. I'd even say that it could compete with the works of Fulci, Argento, and Deodato, just to name a few great Italian horror directors.


To read the rest of the review, click here.

A Jess Franco Double Feature: Macumba Sexual and Mansion of the Living Dead

I have only one term that perfectly summarizes my feelings towards director, Jess Franco--Magnificent Son-of-a-Bitch! It's half compliment and half put-down, it's perfect! I really can't explain my fascination with that freaky, pint-sized Spaniard, but I just can't help myself from coming back to his films time after time. That sick urge came to me again recently and I started to Jones for some Franco style madness. I've seen quite a few of the man's films, but he has made so many, I will probably be playing catch-up for years. That being said, I'm not one of those Franco fans that can't understand why people hate the man's films--they are slow, tend to be boring, have the budget of a High School play, feature bad acting and prolonged shots of hairy vaginas--he is probably one my favorite directors that I simply just can't defend. Franco does not make films for the same reasons other filmmakers do--he's a visionary--sometimes those visions are only clear to him, but a visionary nonetheless.

Till now, I have mainly only seen Franco's films from the 70's such as A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD, EXORCISM, VAMPYROS LESBOS, FEMALE VAMPIRE, COUNT DRACULA, ILSA: THE WICKED WARDEN and a few of his WIP films--to name a few. I hear his films from the 60's are pretty good--even for Franco. I've only seen two of his films from that era, VENUS IN FURS (my favorite Franco movie) and CASTLE OF FU MANCHU (via MST3K). From what I can tell, Franco's films from the 80's were really hit and mostly miss, witness CANNIBALS and OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES (possibly the two worst films I've ever seen), but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment because I decided to check out two more of his films from the 80's--MACUMBA SEXUAL and MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD. Why? As always, the plot synopsis of both seemed intriguing and Netflix carried them, which is really all the incentive I needed.

To read the rest of the review, click here.

Russ Meyer's UP! (1976)

I re-watched Russ Meyer's UP! last night, in hopes of it being my next live review, and soon realized there were almost no clips from the film that I could get away with showing on YouTube, as the film is almost wall-to-wall nudity and fucking. So instead I decided to post some images from the film, for your perverted pleasure, over at Reverend Phantom Reviews. No review, but in the case of UP!, pictures speak louder than words.

Click here to check out some images from, UP!