Savage Sisters - one of the favourite films of Quentin Tarantino, who also takes care of both an intro (which I only watched after seeing the film, lol) and an outro in the extras on the DVD. The film itself is about ganglife where the Silver Daggers are the gang to be feared and their female counterpart the Dagger Debs are the focuspoint of the film. When they enter a diner and demand "their" table, one girl is not impressed, moreover, she fights back! When the police come, they get all taken in and some WIP-like scenes follow. After they all have been released, Maggie, the girl who fought back, is becoming the newest member of the gang. Soon however, it looks like she is planning to take over the gang. Amidst a war against both the police and other gangs, this battle for leadership unfolds and forms the main plot in this juicy exploitation flick. Apart from the previously mentioned WIP scenes, there are gangfights with some Mad Max-like vehicles, there is a huge shootout in a skating rink and a nod to racial tension. I had lots of fun, acting is subpar from time to time, as sometimes you can see actors smile at what they see before them while it isn't appropriate for the scene. Some lines are delivered staccato and some characters are pretty unbelievable. Doesn't matter most of the time because this is just how you like 'em: straight and dirty. Recommended for bad moviefans.

Purana Mandir - this film is a bonus feature on the Bollywood Collection vol. 1, because as the guys at Mondo Macabro say, this is not a film "to show off your new 72 inch HD screen", in other words: the quality is not top notch, but who cares? Another Indian horror, this time about a ruler in Mogol times who loses his daughter to a demon (pretty much her own fault if you see the footage) after which he has the demon decapitated and the head and the body buried separately. His descendants keep living with the curse, and when this curse stands between Suman and Sanjay's love, they decide to travel to the palace of their great grandfather and get rid of the curse. In this Bollywood they start singing much sooner than in the previous Bollywood I watched and there is a very annoying and unfunny "comical note" in the character of Machar Singh: everything he did made my skin crawl. In regard to the demon, it was a pretty failsafe plan to have head and body buried separately, but it didn't take the utter stupidity of people into account: what follows is a string of events, one even dumber than the other, and the result is that the demon is resurrected. Now they have to fight the demon in order to be safe, and it will take some sacrifices to reach that. The length of these films amaze me, and I have trouble keeping focus for so long, especially because the story could have been told in 90 minutes. But happily skipping the songs does save some time at least. The film itself is a lovestory with some horror added into the mix, much like the first Bollywood film I saw (Bandh Darwaza). The effects are mostly OK but sometimes pretty funny to see, like a jump supposedly from the second floor being only one meter, or flying glass never cutting anyone. Curious films these, not really sure if I actually like them but it is different for sure.

Devil's Island Lovers - aka Los Amantes de la Isla del Diablo aka Quartier des Femmes. A Franco WIP but not very sleazy. The plot is pretty good: a very strict governor confesses on his deathbed that he had two innocent youngsters convicted for a murder he committed himself. We see these things happening looking back in the memories of the dying governor. There is some violence (guards shoot at running prisoners in some kind of arena, for example) but this film didn't come across to me as yet another Franco, I almost didn't believe it was one until I saw Howard Vernon (playing a colonel in a prison). Yes, there is some sexual activity in the prisons, but it's not shown that much and it's all very tidy. My DVD version supposedly is cut, but I'm not sure what was cut and how much. Imdb states a running time of 97 minutes, but imdb has been wrong in running times before. Both melonfarmers and dvdcompare state a running time of a little over 80 minutes, which is the same as mine. Dvdcompare also says "Cuts: yes" but no details, since I'm so used to sleaze in Franco films I presume there could be a longer version somewhere out there but it's not released on any disc afaik. This film therefore focuses more on the drama of the innocently convicted youngsters, which can hardly be seen as anything else than Franco criticizing his namesake in contemporary Spain. The ending is gritty as is the rest of the story, so expect a different film than most of his work. Still recommended though, for Franco fans and others.

Monster from Green Hell - a spaceship returning to earth crashlands somewhere in Africa. It contained animal lifeforms, in this case a wasp's nest (earlier a guinea pig and a caiman had been sent up into space). Some time later, there is turmoil in that part of Africa and an expedition is set up in order to find the cause for it and maybe track down the remains of the spaceship. Upon arriving in Africa they learn that several natives have been disappearing, with an unclear cause of death. They hear strange noises and see wildlife on the run, even lions and elephants. It doesn't take long (fortunately, sometimes these black and white drive-in flicks take ages to show you the monster) before they visit the area called "the green hell" and they see the monstrous wasps which have grown to enormous sizes. The wasps make the strange noises and they kill everything in their path. Now the expedition has to find a way to destroy them and save the world! The wasps look ridiculously fake, they are plastic models which are enlarged on camera. The scenes where you see people and wasps in the same frame are rare and they look really bad. The noise is annoying (and loud! Much louder than the dialogue which always irritates me). A good thing in this film is that you don't have to wait too long like I mentioned before you can see the monsters. Acting, the retarded position of women and the wildlife are bad things: I mean, since when do herds of Asian elephants live in West Africa? All in all a nice drive in flick, not the best not the worst I have seen.

She Demons - you take a shipwreck that you didn't get to see, a blonde spoiled woman, a brave guy, two sidekicks, a cage of beautiful women and some leftover nazis and you put all of this together in a tropical island setting and voila: this film is the result. It's all very flat and simple but enough stuff happens to keep you entertained for just over an hour and by that time the film is almost over so why not sit it out right? Acting is somewhat exaggerated sometimes, especially between the two main characters. The sidekicks and the nazis are almost satire but it surely wasn't meant like that. The women in the cage are part of an experiment executed by one of the nazis, of course. While the shipwrecked crew tries to liberate the women, there is also the impending doom of the AMerican Airforce bombing the island to smithereens. Laughable nonsense, so it's for a brainless hour. One of the better options if you check out other drive-ins from the 50s.

Veerana, vengeance of the vampire - a witch is being captured by a local landlord and subsequently killed. The followers of the witch's cult take revenge by having his daughter possessed. Her body is destined to be the vessel of the witch's spirit and in this form she returns home. She grows up still being possessed by the witch, having fits from time to time. No doctor can heal her and in the meantime she seduces several men. The cult of the witch is unreal: there is a huge Baal-like statue called Mahakal (it's a humanoid figure with glowing eyes and horns) and a table with five weird creatures around it: they have treetrunks for heads and it's totally unclear what they are doing or what their function is. Unfortunately there is a comical note again, this time in the form of a scared horror director wannabe: very cringe. One doctor tries a psychiatric approach and he finds out that Jasmine, the daughter, is now a witch. Her father still doesn't believe it (he has never done so against all the evidence which was until then circumstantial) but he eventually has to when even the doctor dies to her hands. Acting is mediocre, we again see sometimes castmembers inadvertently laugh at scenes they are in. Effects are OKish, except for the lightning which looks very fake. There isn't much blood, the witch looks cool but since it's a mask there aren't any expressions on her scary face. Although the English title has a vampire mentioned, there aren't any vampires in this film. Some (supposed) nudity, where in one scene you can see the actress wearing a bra even though she is supposedly naked in a bathtub. Nice Bollywood, not as much singing (only three songs and pretty short too) but again too long as this story could have been told in one hour less too.