Thought it worth starting a special thread for Deucember so we can log any films we watch as part of it. Not sure if I’m the only one nuts enough to run another month long challenge off the back of Spagvemberfest but what the hey. Let’s go.
I’m going to start off trying to hit one film off each of the genre pages over at the Grindhouse Cinema Database site and what better place to start than with Pam Grier blasting her way to vengeance while taking out a whole bunch of mean muthers along the way. I think I prefer Foxy Brown to this one but still plenty of fun to be had. Not least of which is Robert Doqui’s mustard coloured jumpsuit. It is saying something when Pam is topless and all you can look at is his zip up one-piece pimp suit. Respect!
I’m in a bit of a giallo kick right now and I just rented a bunch of them at the library so I’m probably gonna stay in that genre for a few days, and this is definitely of the bests, suspensful, scary and unpredictable, this is one to check out. Dallamano, the director of the classic spag Bandidos helms this movie with style and atmosphere which rivals the best of argento, check it out as soon as you can if you haven’t watched it!
Another classic giallo, it was a first watch for me and I must say, it is as good as giallos get, although the script was not as strong as it could have been to me, the atmosphere and the violence which is still shocking almost 50 years later make it a winner
“The Hottest Thing on Wheels”.
Well they got that right. They didn’t get much hotter than the divine Raquel back ion '72. Sadly, it’s all too obvious that the person on wheels most of the time was someone quite different wearing a long, face covering wig and Raquel’s number. Never mind. I have fond memories of watching this film as a teenager and it still pleases despite it’s obviously shortcomings.
Also nice to see Helena Kallioniotes in her usual terminally pissed off role. Can’t see her without remembering her cameo in Five Easy Pieces. “It’s the filth I can’t stand!”
If Pam was the Godmother of them all and Raquel was the hottest thing on skates Angela must have been the queen of kung fu kick arse.
I’ll be including a Shaw Brothers flick at some point this Deucember for sure but no grindhouse fest would be complete without some Golden Harvest so my first Chop Sockey of the season was this one and it didn’t disappoint. It’s one of the many benefits of this kind of self inflicted discipline that you invariably start picking stuff off the shelf you haven’t looked at in years and which you consequently have little memory of. Turns out it’s all about Angela going on a vengeance trail and beating the crap out of a ton of nameless bad guy henchmen on her way to getting even with a handful of Mr Bigs. Who woulda thought? Oh, but this time she also enlists the help of a bagful of scorpions to spice things up. Go Angie!
This film doesn’t get nearly enough love in my opinion. Nice twist and turn story line with loads of cross and double cross intrigue, well directed by one of Italy’s best, Massimo Dallamano, beautifully shot by oscar winning cinematographer Jack Hildyard (how they hell did they get him for this??), great cast including Ivan Rassimov at his coolest and Stephanie Beacham at her sexiest and a banging score by the wonderful Riz Ortolani. It’s a classic mix of Italian and British talent of the early 70s which ticks just about every box for me. Can’t recommend it high enough.
I actually forgot to write it yesterday so this is gonna be a two for one.
Two insanely atmospheric giallos that I would recommend to anybody who likes movies, my favorite of the two was the latter, beinbpg in my opinion, fulci’s masterpiece
Peak Fulci, sleazy and meta, expertly executed and yet doesn’t have the impact on me other films have, imagining how Argento would execute such a story. It is more a slasher than a proper giallo…
Trying to work my way through as many different genres as possible for this challenge and today it was time for some Macaroni Combat. I’ve seen a few of these Italian war pictures over the years and I think this is one of the best. Good cast, lots of action and an engaging story that clips along just as you’d expect from Castellari. At times it looks like a film with a much bigger budget than you might expect (during the Dunkirk beach scenes for example) but at others shows that the purse was far from bottomless. The special effects used are mostly model and matte painting based but, for me, this is actually a plus as the model stuff is a delight and the stock footage actually inserted quite creatively in split screens.If you like Italian films of the sixties and you like war films in general you could do a lot worse.
I’m gonna watch it right now, I have only seen a handful of martial arts movies and I really like them so far, this one shouldn’t disappoint as it is number 1 on the 20 best kung fu movies over at the GCDB
Time for a bit of dystopian future sci-fi and a film I’ve actually not seen before. A bit Escape from New York-ish except with a baby and some seeds and a lot less action but actually quite enjoyable with Yul Brynner and Max von Sydow adding a bit of gravitas to what is otherwise a pulp sci fi genre piece.
My first time viewing Lucio Fulci’s so called most savage and violent thriller and the blu ray I picked up at the library has a lot of great special features, tonight’s gonna be good!
I’m working my way through the genres listed on the GCDB and for day 7 I chose Anthology films. The Brits produced a bunch of these in the 70s and I thought I’d seen them all before but this one turned out to be new to me actually. It was a BluRay purchase from earlier in the year too so good to finally break the cellophane on it. Turns out it is far from being one of the best of its type but the cast is excellent and it has its odd moments so not a complete washout. Not so much a horror anthology as a Tales of the Unexpected type. Or, more accurately, Tales of the Completely Predictable. Stand out bit for me was the guy who chose sleeping with a tree over Joan Collins.
