Tobor the Great - saw some clips from this in a compilation about bad movies, so I noted down the title and ordered it. It's a pretty typical 1950s scifi film, with an unsubtle nod at the Cold War going on and the typical characters films like this usually portray. My copy had burnt in Spanish subtitles which were mostly annoying, not because I don't understand Spanish but because it was distracting from watching the film, would have been nice if it was optional. There is no monster in this one, the huge robot (yes, Tobor is robot spelled backwards, something the artificial assistant itself types down on a paper in an assignment) is rather friendly. The scientist who made it has a nosy grandson who is getting in the thick of it when the Soviet spies are making their move. Acting, atmosphere, set, etc is all very mediocre and if you have seen 1950s scifis before, there is no reason to specifically go for this one. There are some bad movie thingies to laugh at but overall not much to enjoy here. Next!

Poison For The Fairies - aka Veneno para las hadas. The last film in the " Mexican Gothic: Films of Carlos Enrique Taboada" boxset. As the previous films, this is not really a horror. The story is about two young girls, one rich and rather spoiled, one average and without parents, living with a nanny and her grandma. The latter girl, Veronica, convinces the first one, Flavia, that she is a witch. This whole witch thing is fantasy all over, but it's also the only connection with what could be considered horror. Flavia is happy that she has a friend (she just moved in and is "the new girl"), and Veronica is happy she finally has a friend too (in some scenes we see other girls mocking Veronica over her witch "hobby". Veronica goes really far in the fantasy and demands more and more of Flavia to both participate and keep it a secret. This culminated into a final scene where the whole fantasy comes to a pretty gruesome end with a twist. I must say I wasn't really surprised at the twist, but it saved the film a little bit as until that point it was a rather quiet and timid movie without any extreme scenes. As a film it's not that bad: the cinematography is pretty cool as you don't get to see a lot of the adults in the film, their faces are mostly out of frame or turned away from the camera, which focuses the image on the children. That was a very nice touch but like the previous films it suffers from wrong advertising as one would expect horror in a box called "Mexican Gothic..." and it simply isn't. So if you want to see horror pick something else, if you want to see children's fantasy portrayed, go for it.

Sweet Sugar - a film for which a new release on BluRay was like a re-animation for a drowning person. It's a WIP and I thought I had seen them all but I guess I was wrong. This one stars main character Sugar, who gets arrested and sent to a plantation where, you guessed it, she has to cut sugarcane (the irony!). This is part of a deal for her to not go to prison for some small crime she did not really commit, but hey, what can you say: corruption in the judicial system is of all times, eh? So Sugar sets out to sharpen her machete and cut cane, but apart from her and the other girls being abused and mistreated by the guards, they are also subject to some strange experiments of Dr John, a guy who has reinvented the maniacal laugh, you should hear it: it's a classic. One of SUgar's main goals becomes escape, but her first attempts all fail and she gets beaten heavily as punishment: will she survive to try another one? Atmosphere is like any other WIP with a tropical twist this time, a bit like The Big Bird Cage. Effects are mediocre at best, with whips smeared with red paint so the very first lash already makes the victim "bleeding heavily". The cats in the experiment look like they wanna get out as fast as possible, instead of the ferocious monsters they are supposed to be portraying. This and then some voodoo rituals, torture and bad sex jokes and there is lots to laugh at, and to enjoy with your friends on a bad movienight. Recommended for bad moviefans!

28 Years Later - went to the cinema to see this with a friend. When 28 Days Later came out I had seen it in the cinema too, in the so called sneak preview where you could get in for as little as 1,50 Euros to see a movie of which you wouldn't know which one it was until the opening credits were rolling. I remember I was a bit disappointed that the "zombies" could run (it was my introduction to "the infected") but that overall it was a pretty good sneak preview. I also saw 28 Weeks Later (not in cinema though), but could not remember a thing about it (usually not a good sign). Now that this one was announced, I was curious to see what would be the main thing for this film: the trailer looked promising. In this film, a group of Brits have retreated onto an island, which is only connected by one causeway to the mainland, and this causeway gets flooded when the tide is high. Spike, a twelve year old, is taken on his first trip to the mainland by his father Jamie. The trip they make is really cool, the tension in the air, when will the infected show up, can they escape them in time and how will Spike hold up against the fear are ingredients for a really nice piece of film. However, in the second part, where Spike takes a new trip to the mainland, this time with his sick mother in order to find ehr a doctor, this all goes downhill. There is a comical part with the last survivor of a group of Swedish soldiers, and a pretty long scene meant as a tearjerker which comes off as totally ridiculous. So while it starts pretty well, unfortunately the film can't hold up this nice start and follows up with something I'd rather not have seen. The final scene opened up new options for a sequel which inevitably will come, and even though I thought the colourful gang was interesting, I'm not sure if I really want to see it. A missed chance, if you can take it to see a film for only about half of the running time, then walk out after Spike has returned to the island.

Troma's War - after a stupid and unnecessary introduction by Lloyd Kaufman, you get to see one of the most ludicrous war/actionflicks ever. A plane crashes on a Caribbean island (the planecrash is not visible, all you get to see is the result, the rest happens during the opening credits which roll on a black background) where the foliage is very much North American with deciduous forest and no palm trees whatsoever. The survivors of the planecrash bump into the inhabitants of the island who aren't all too friendly: they are an international gang of terrorists, planning a biological attack on the US. Among the survivors there are a Vietnam veteran, a rockband, a handicapped guy, a blind girl, etc. They band together and form a ragtag army to fight the terrorists, which is happening with lots of firefights alternated with some fistfights here or there. The weaponry shown in this is varied: from WW2 weaponry to late Cold War stuff. effects are nice and stupid, lots of blood squirting from various places but mostly mouths, explosions happening a tad too soon, dead bodies breathing and dolls dropping down. Lovely bullshit, recommended for bad moviefans.

Beware My Brethren - British 70s film about a security guard who lives with his mother. She is alone (husband died or went away with another girl, that is not 100% clear) and a member of a religious cult called The Brethren. The minister of the Brethren talks hell and damnation and the followers cry out for mercy and help from Jesus, the usual stuff with religious cults. In the opening scene you see the cult and it's mixed with scenes of a woman fleeing and she ends up getting murdered. This is nicely done and there are several other moments in the film where this type of editing is being put to good use. It's rather straightforward in the sense that you don't really have to guess who the killer is (this is pretty obvious from the start), but the unravelling of the cult is pretty interesting, with the involvement of a nurse and her journalist sister. Acting is great, atmosphere is well done too, you almost feel the stranglehold the cult is having on the mother. Nice film, recommended.

Angry Red Planet - I have the German BR which is called "Weltraumschiff MR1 gibt keine Antwort", but you can watch it in English. A spaceship is being spotted in orbit, it has been to Mars and is now returning to earth. Upon arrival, one of the crewmembers is wounded, two are dead and one is somewhat OK. She tells the story of the trip and the plot of the movie is told through her recollection of events. On Mars they encounter various alien monsters and experience technical difficulties with the ship. The scenes on Mars outside the spaceship are all done with a heavy red filter and some weird effects which make some parts of the image blurry. The backgrounds are all drawinfs obviously, and one of the monsters (a strange mix between a bat and a spider) is too. On a boat trip across a lake they encounter a giant squid which rises from something which looks more like a sea, but it's actually a giant amoeba which is trying to kill them, they also hear a broadcast in perfect English warning them to never come back to Mars. The ending is about rescuing the wounded crewmember.  The film is from the 60s and is therefore full of bad jokes/remarks about (the inferior position of) women, this is a film you might want to see with friends and enough beer: recommended for bad moviefans! 

The Thirst - there are many vampiremovies with titles referring to either thirst or hunger and I have seen most of them but this The Thirst from 2006 was one I hadn't seen yet. The cover says that it's "Near Dark meets Requiem for a Dream" and this sets the bar pretty high. The story is about a couple (Lisa and Maxx) in trouble: they are both addicted, but while Maxx is trying to go clean (we see him sitting in one of those awful meetings where addicts talk about their experiences), Lisa is still using regularly while earning money as a stripper. One night she gets sick and is about to die, but she gets turned into a vampire at the last moment, giving her eternal life. Maxx is broken, but after some period of grief he gets taken out by his friends and he thinks he is seeing Lisa. Of course this throws him off, but eventually he gets turned into a vampire too. From this moment on, they continue their lives as they did while still normal humans, only this time the drug is blood. While eating, lots of blood is being spilled so if you like gore, this one should be good for you. The story itself is a bit mediocre and even gets a bit corny when the lovers are confronted by the fact they can't really keep being lovers in the vampireworld so they make one of the corniest decisions ever. Like I said, the remark on the cover set the bar high, in my humble opinion a bit too high. Still a nice passtime if you are into gore.

Gorgo - this movie is being advertised as "the British Godzilla" and that is quite a good way to describe it. When a ship is close to Ireland it gets into trouble because of an undersea volcanic eruption. Nara Island is close but inhospitable: the inhabitants and the resident archaeologist all want the crew of the ship to go away. Soon however, it turns out the eruption brought forward something else, namely a giant monster. They capture the monster and bring it to London where it is being showcased for the public. The monster is not the only one of its kind, though... Whereas appearance is very Godzilla-like, there are some differences: Godzilla is always connected to nuclear activities: the films have a strong antinuclear message. Gorgo comes forward because of a volcanic eruption, which has nothing to do with nuclear activities. Also, Godzilla has a devastating fiery breath, whereas Gorgo just waltzes over buildings etc, never showing anything like a fiery breath. In most other aspects it is very much like Godzilla: it destroys a city (London instead of Tokyo this time), the country is trying to combat it with their entire army to no avail, and a young boy has a significant role in the plot. OK film, nice to see a "Godzilla" film from somewhere else. I had already seen the Danish Godzilla (Reptilicus) and now I have seen the British one too. If you like Godzilla, this will be for you.

De Profundis - aka Il Gatto Nero. Luigi Cozzi's take on the Mother of Tears story, which is literally explained in the film: "it's already been done by Dario Argento, but there are 10 films in the story of Suspiria de profundis, or 20". Cozzi and Argento are friends so this is a nice nod, but it's also very clear that Argento is the better director of the two. The plot is about a director, married to an actress and he plans to make a film about the witch from Suspiria de profundis. Of course his wife is meant to play the witch, but while he is trying to get a producer and the writer is starting to make the screenplay, she starts seeing things more and more: a witch appears out of the mirror, for example. These horror scenes are accompanied by green light, and the appearance of the witch is covered in shiny pimples and she vomits green and brown gore and blood. Apart from the effects being rather cheap, there is some sloppy editing: in a scene where you are just looking at the house where they live, there is a gap in the trees swaying in the wind: it jumps a bit to the left all of a sudden. The plot develops a bit like a giallo at some point, where I got the feeling that all the witchcraft was a scheme to make Anna (played by a Winona Ryder lookalike) believe that there was a witch so Nora (played by Caroline Munro who is a beauty but messed up her appearance by a ludicrous 80s hairdo) could get away with taking her husband, but it didn't turn out like that. Instead it had a very, very cheesy ending which made me laugh o9ut loud. Recommended for bad moviefans. 

Trapped Ashes - received a big package with about one hundred titles on DVD in the mail, this is the first one I am watching. Six people take a tour on a movieset and enter a haunted house against the advice of the tourguide. Once inside they are trapped and they each have to tell a horror story. The first one is about a boobjob gone wrong, a bit Cronenberg like. The second one is about a couple on a businesstrip in Japan where the woman gets obsessed with a guy who committed suicide. The third story is about a guy fucking the mysterious girlfriend of his best friend. The last one is about a worm growing inside of a woman's belly next to her baby. After these stories are told, the tourguide gives them all a little twist and the wraparound is brought to a close. As often the case, the wraparound is among the weakest parts of the film. Acting is OK, Michael Ironside is in it, but a different actor plays the younger version of him in his story and although he does a decent job, I'd rather have seen Ironside himself. I liked the first one the best, followed by the last one, probably because they are both body horror. Not really special, but an OK way to pass the time.

Dr Blood's Coffin - a doctor tries to experiment on human beings, attempting to create a means to bring the dead back to life, but he is sent away by his older colleague. When local people in an English village start disappearing, it seems the doctor has found his way towards new subjects for his experiments. Slow film (it's from 1961) in which the time is taken for scenes which would last seconds nowadays, for example when the nurse finds the fridge open, she wonders for minutes what could have happened. It's pretty clear from the start who the evil doctor experimenting on humans actually is. Nurse Linda is taking a love interest in him and their romance is quite corny, especially because she stays oblivious to his activities. This isn't exceptional however, as apart from you as the viewer, nobody seems to have noticed. This may be the main gripe I had with this film, as the doctor is so obviously the guy who did it, but with him being the son of a well known physician, there is a small excuse for not suspecting him. The doctor can't escape forever though and with him getting caught the film ends. Pretty uneventful and, as said, slow. Acting is OK but if you have anything else to watch, pick that.

The Warrior - aka Jaka Sembung. One of the gems in my recent big order! Barry Prima (love his name) plays Jaka Sembung, the leader of an Indonesian rebellion against the Dutch somewhere at the beginning of the 19th century. He escapes hard labour, then defeats Kobar, the mercenary sent after him by the Dutch. The Dutch leader turns to a wizard to resurrect a supernatural warrior (Ki Item) to defeat Jaka. This results in Jaka's imprisonment, but the daughter of the Dutch leader falls in love with him and tries to help him escape. Before that happens though, Jaka is having his eyes gouged out and being turned into a pig. Of course he happens to run into some shaman who turns him back into human form and save the day. These change scenes are... incredible, like so many other sfx: with obvious dolls, half invisible bodies to make a head "fly", rubber jailbars, etc. you can have a field day if you are into bad movies. Most if not all characters are played by Indonesians, so even the Dutch look very Asian which further enhances the charm of this movie"s badness. Highly recommended for bad moviefans!

The Lost World - had seen this one for sale, as in the 1925 silent movie, but it was priced pretty steeply and I didn't buy it. Never thought about it again and when I bought this one it was because it's the 1960 version which seemed to me a more interesting film to watch. To my delight I discovered that the box didn't only contain the 1960 version but the 1925 version too! I still started by watching the 1960 version, the 1925 one will follow later. In this film, we see an expedition getting organized within minutes to confirm the discovery of live dinosaurs somewhere in the Amazon. Upon arriving in the Amazon area, the expedition receives some new passengers in the person of a woman and her brother (this was very predictable, because otherwise there would be no love interest anywhere). On the first night in the distant plateau, a dinosaur passes their camp and destroys the helicopter: they are trapped now on the plateau, with dinosaurs roaming around... Effects are what you may expect from 1960: a greenish glowing spider is obviously some sort of projection, the landscape is either a drawing, a garden or miniatures, one of the main dinosaurs is a Komodo dragon with some makeup (a fake crest - and there are a few other "creatures " like this, a crocodile and a lizard with some fake additions like for example spikes). Of course all these creatures scream and growl like tigers or lions. The plot develops in a pretty cliche way and out of the entire expedition, all Europeans survive and the Latin Americans perish: what a coincidence. If you are into bad movies, or if you like classic adventure movies you might enjoy this one.

The Manster - 50s drive in flick about Larry, a reporter in Japan who meets a scientist who has been experimenting on people. Because these experiments failed so far, he takes Larry as his new subject. He injects him but then it takes ages for the stuff to take effect. In the meantime he entertains Larry and Larry starts an affair with Tara, the assistant of the scientist. Larry's wife however, unsatisfied by the fact he hasn't returned home yet, comes to visit in Japan. By this time, Larry has become very rude and one of his hands has grown hairy. He tells his wife she can go home and leaves with Tara. He also starts to kill.people quite randomly (for this to happen you have to wait 45-50 minutes in which nothing much interesting is happening). His boss, his wife and the police are now after him and he grows a second head out of his shoulder: I guess the directors of The Two Headed Man and/or The Amazing Transplant have seen this film. The second head never does anything but looking goofy, Larry's wife doesn't give up on him andvTara starts disagreeing with the scientist's plans. The ending is so cheesy it's almost unbelievable, but it fits the pretty strange film. Only if you like bad films and have patience this one is for you.

Had a movienight with friends and we watched:

Seven Women For Satan - aka Les week-ends maléfiques du Comte Zaroff. This film, directed by and starring Michel Lemoine, seems to be his erotic fantasy written for himself and then lived out on film. Apparently this is a sequel, but I haven't seen the first film so I'll leave it at that. The film is rather confusing at times, it starts with a hallucination (at least, it turns out to be one) with a naked woman running through the woods, being chased by a horseman and a dog. You never get to see them together in the same picture, so if they have ever been in the same forest is left to the imagination. After this hallucination, the main character (Count Boris Zaroff) picks up a hitchhiker and brings her to his castle which he had recently bought. The butler in the castle is quite a sadistic character and tries to get the Count to commit atrocities against the women, he sets the example himself a few times. From time to time women appear in the castle, either because they were trying to get a job at the Count's company, or because they were stranded. They all meet their demise but even though there are several, we didn't get to the seven from the title. Lots of nudity, a torture chamber, an ultimately dumb couple (I mean, who lets himself get chained to a torture machine by two strangers in the middle of the night? Come on!)  and the confusing switching between the several dreams and hallucinations and the "reality" make this a great film for bad moviefans. 

Queen of Black Magic - I have wanted to buy this film for a very long time. The first time I saw it for sale for 40 Euros I was too late and someone else had bought it. After that I searched for it and found it on amazon for over 100 Euros which was a bit too steep for my taste, so I was really happy that I got an offer to buy it again, this time for 35 Euros. In this film, a woman is about to get married but then her husband-to-be turns on her and accuses her of witchcraft. Her punishment is that she gets thrown into a ravine, but she gets caught by an old shaman, preventing her death. The shaman puts her up to get revenge, so she starts using magic to kill all her opponents: this comes with some bad effects and some laughable acting performances. Some people get covered in pimples which explode ione by one, other people are having their entire heads exploding. A baby is being kidnapped and brought back later, making the kidnapping a rather useless act. Some buildings are being set on fire which looked like real buildings instead of sets so hopefully they did it right on the first take. OIndonesian films always have several strange things happening and this one also has a message as we read later in the extras: when this film was being made, Indonesia suffered a series of black magic killings, so a character was put in this film which is a devout muslim, and he saves the village. Some very nice stuff in this one, but a little less outrageous than some other Indonesian films I have seen before. Still highly recommended for bad moviefans though.

Wrestling Women vs The Aztec Mummy - black and white Mexican film which shows a lot of wrestling like you may know from WWE or actual Mexican Luchadores: it looks pretty fake and is mostly for show. After some 10 minutes in, the plot starts (until then you have only been watching the wrestling), and it's about an Aztec codex split into three parts and a Japanese crimeboss trying to get all three of them so he can uncover the location of an Aztec treasure. It's up to the wrestling women and some other characters to prevent this. The crimeboss has a camera hidden in the "secret" apartment where they all gather to discuss their plans, so he is always one step ahead of them. The images and sounds from this small camera are surprisingly good, especially for the 1960s. One of the women is being kidnapped and turned into a mindless zombie and used as a spy, for some reason nobody ever notices that she suddenly lost all her spontaneity. At some point the crimeboss has two parts and the wrestling women have one. They organise a fight (of course!) to determine who will get all three parts and this fight goes as you might expect from a film like this: the Japanese judokas win the first round, and then the wrestling women turn the match around winning 2-1. With the codex they are gonna visit the pyramid where the treasure supposedly is, but there are also two mummies, one of which can turn into a bat or a snake just like that (this happens a few times and looks ridiculously bad) and they are fighting together with the wrestling women against the bad guys, who are trying to steal the treasure even though they lost the wrestling fight. All ends well but not after some pretty dumb looking fights to conclude this story. Recommended for bad moviefans, the first part of the film drags a little, but in the final part where the mummy appears it gets really funny.

Cat-Women of the Moon - a spaceship with a crew of four men and a woman is on its way to the moon. The leader of the crew is very serious about the scientific part of the mission, the rest not so much. When they approach the moon, the woman suggests a landing spot. After they have landed there and explore the moon itself she suggests the direction they are going in: a cave where extremely large spiders with very visible threads are coming down from the ceiling. A few knife strikes and some gunshots put these creatures to an end. On the other end of the cave they find a building where they see large statues and eventually find the inhabitants: the cat-women of the moon, actually women in black ballet suits with some heavy make up. They had been telepathically in contact with the women of the crew while they were still approaching the moon in their spacecraft, hence her "suggestions". The plan of the cat-women is to steal the spacecraft and travel to the earth with it, in order to continue their existence on that planet (on the moon they have no men and therefore will get extinct in time). The entire film breathes mysogynism, with female stereotypes interwoven with the "dangers" of women in power. Of course one of the cat-women really falls in love with one of the crewmembers, but she can't have her love because it will screw up the plan. The revolver of one of the crewmen seems to have unlimited ammo which comes in handy in the final scene where they kill everyone who is trying to stop them from returning to earth. Short (64 minutes) but very bad scifi from the drive-in. Recommended for bad moviefans, but you could easily skip the first 25 minutes because you won't miss anything.