Reviews

Happily the series is not lost after all. Theatrical versions were released to DVD in France and Italy some time ago.

Now, finally, a Spanish movie magazine has released the complete six-episodes series to limited edition DVD! Bad news for some of us is that only a Spanish language track is included, with no subtitles. (If that is unacceptable to you, well, you'll have track down one of the old VHS releases then - and that'd be of the theatrical version only. No complete release in English is known to exist.) But at least it's available, so get it while you can. I've heard that the initial batch sold out almost instantly, to the complete surprise of the magazine staff.

Anyway, let's hope someone will release an English language version. If necessary, do a brand new dub! (Omar Sharif is still around, after all.)

P.S. Watching the complete series again I marvel at how faithful to Jules Verne the producers were. Well, they did crank up the scifi elements a bit, but then again Verne is considered the grandfather of Science Fiction, isn't he?

I've read about the atrocious English language dub, but my copy of the film is the Dutch rental video with the original German dialogue and it sounds fine. The film itself is gritty and realistic in tone. Five astronauts return from years in space only to find a seemingly desolate Earth. No radio signals, deserted ruins, sparse vegetation etc. At loss at what to do next they decide to head North, but without sufficient food and water supplies, how long will they last? The line between reality, hallucinations due to dehydration (and possible radioactive sickness) and flashbacks to their exploration of Jupiter moon Ganymedes is constantly blurred. Recommended.

DJANGO AND SARTANA'S SHOWDOWN IN THE WEST is unquestionably one of the worst spaghetti westerns ever made. Directed by the infamous Demofilo Fidani on a non-existing budget, with long intervals of absolutely nothing happening and what little does happen isn't anything to write home about either. If you must, watch it for Gordon Mitchell who is genuinly funny as the crazy gang leader who is engaged in a poker play with his mirror image for the most of the film. By the way Django and Sartana doesn't even have a showdown!

For it's time - 1960 - REVENGE OF THE BARBARIANS is surprisingly erotic. Not only does it star voluptuous Daniella Rocca who oozes sex, it also contains two rather kinky scenes of females being whipped, the second even leading to a bit of s/m love-making, preceding Mario Bava's controversial film on that very subject, THE WHIP AND THE BODY, by two years.

The extremely obscure Kirk Morris vehicle MACISTE, AVENGER OF THE MAYANS (the English title although I've never managed to locate any English language print) is a very weird experience even as sword & sandal goes, since the film in fact consists mostly of footage from FIRE MONSTERS VS THE SON OF HERCULES (starring Reg Lewis) and COLOSSUS AGAINST THE HEADHUNTERS (starring Kirk Morris) with new linking material featuring Morris added. Poor Reg Lewis has been almost completely eliminated from the footage (but if you look closely it's still him who throws the spear at the water dragon). Cramming together the plots of two different films into one makes the scenery fairly crowded - after all FIRE MONSTERS introduced three different tribes - and now there's no less than five of them fighting each other in turns. Plus the director tosses in a cheesy cave-dwelling giant to tip the powerscale!

This film looks like it was made on an extremely tiny budget. It has some of the grotesque humour found in classic splatter horror films of the eighties, but is surprisingly low on gore (except for a few nasty incidents). The acting is mostly amateurish. Good fun. "I want a young strong heart and I want it now!"

IN THE SHADOW OF THE EAGLES is an extremely rare peplum directed by Ferdinando Baldi, apparently shot back-to-back with his MASSACRE IN THB BLACK FOREST. Cameron Mitchell more or less repeats his role from that film, staring as a Roman general matching wits with a rebellious tribe of barbarians at the border of the Empire. Recommended.

I've watched SEVEN SAMURAI the first 20 times - at least. It's my number one favorite film, so that's hardly surprising. Despite being 3hour15min aprx long the film never drags, on the contrary it's nice to have time to learn the characters and what drives them well. For rainy Sunday afternoon...

This film is extremely rare. I watched it on Danish tv when I was kid - something like 26 years ago! - and have been hunting it ever since. Finally I tracked down a German rental tape, but apparently no English language video exists?? THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND OF CAPTAIN NEMO stays fairly close to the source (in the book Jupiter is an orangutan, not a chimpanzee, ok, that's a very minor detail). However the film adds som weird sci-fi touches. Back then I was very fascinated by the remote rayguns with which Captain Nemo (Omar Sharif!) protects his realm, while today they admittedly look suspiciously like car lights on sticks. But the film is still great fun.

A British aristocrat played by Peter Cushing is killed by the Knights who say "ni" and it's up to his son coming all the way from America to solve the case. The whole thing is extremely silly, but Donald Pleasence, the head of "The Knights of Avalon" (a society dedicated to the medieval values of live, unfortunately gone vigilante), manages to look fairly omnious in full knights armour. Quite hard to track down these days.

A beautiful film starring one of modern music's most endearing (and brilliant) cult artists. It's interesting to compare "Storefront Hitchcock", recorded late 1996, with his 1985 concert with backing band The Egyptians, captured on the video "Gotta Let This Hen Out!" - great, if weird rock, the subjects may be mordid, but the tone is optimistic. Zoom to 1996 and the boyish cult star has become a greyhaired, matured solo-artist, offering introspective, haunting tales of death and despair. There's an almost majestic sadness to songs like "Glass Hotel", "You and Oblivion". Highly recommended.

SPIDER LABYRINTH is a late Italian Horror film, obviously inspired by the classic works of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. However, this is a classic in it's own right. A young scientist travels to Budapest to investigate the reasons for unexpected problems with a top secret project. He soon becomes, ah, entangled in the web of a sinister society... Highly recommended.

A very weird spy/adventure comedy starring Oliver Reed who looks like he's in trance (or more likely drunk) all through the proceedings. Peter Cushing co-stars and tries desperately to be funny. The beautiful Sylvaine Charlet plays a modern-day Mata Hari and has an out-of-the-blue fullfrontal nude scene every fifteen minute or so to keep the audience awake. Wilfred Hyde-White does a sort of cameo (but why??). There's even a brief scene from the b/w "KING KONG"! However the main attraction must be local actor Edwin Mamba (the film was shot in Zambia of all places) who delivers such an outrageously hammy performance that it almost saves the film. Almost.

This is a brilliant film! A psychological thriller and also a clever variation on A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Peter Cushing, in perhaps his best performances ever captured on film (along with THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL and the BBC play "1984"), plays an unsympathetic bank manager blackmailed into robbing his own bank by cunning gentleman-thief Andre Morell (in a rock solid performance). The great moment comes when Cushing who has bullied his staff all the time must beg them to help him cover up the robbery - if not, his family will be killed. I won't reveal more, it would spoil the fun.

THE CYNIC, THE RAT AND THE FIST is an excellent Italian police film directed by genre meister Umberto Lenzi. Despite his cannibal movies notority this is what Lenzi is really best at. Stylish, well scripted, with catchy scores and starring tough guys like Tomas Milian, Maurizio Merli, John Saxon, Henry Silva and other genre vets his police films always offer great entertainment. The plot (as in his other films) isn't very important, but has basically something to do with tough cop Merli hunting down and beating up criminals, while dodging counterattacks from gangsters Milian and Saxon.

"Mannaja" ("A Man called Blade" is a case of great director + great cast great film. One of the most stylish of all spaghetti western it stars several veterans of the Italian crime/action genre: Maurizio Merli, John Steiner and Donald O'Brien. Merli is the tough macho hero as always, John Steiner a delightfully slimy villian and Donald O'Brian is fun as a small time crook. Highly recommended!

Good is of course a relative term when it comes to the (in)famous Ilsa-trilogy. But ILSA - TIGRESS OF SIBERIA is the best of a fairly rotten lot and has plenty of entertainment: graphic gore, softcore sex and cheesy action. Far less disgusting than the first film and better produced (and scripted) than the second. The ending is hilarious.

Hammer had planned CAPTAIN KRONOS: VAMPIRE HUNTER to be a series of films (like their FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA series), so in a way the existing film is a pilot - and what a pilot. Swashbuckler, spaghetti western and traditional Hammer vampire lore rolled into one cracking adventure film. Unfortunately, since CAPTAIN KRONOS didn't make any money, all plans were dropped. Having re-watched it recently I think there could be material for a great TV-series. Anyone in the industry reading this??

At the first viewing the dreamlike, surreal story of "Lisa and the Devil" reminded me of "Carnival of Souls". What are we to believe? What actually happens to Lisa and what are illusions? Is she trapped in a nightmare, is she a ghost, did she ever exist? But on close inspection the answer seems to be more open (or cryptic), more like "Lost Highway".

My favorite Mario Bava film, a close run with "The Mask of Satan". Fans of fast action and gore be warned: this is slow going, but great going. Oh, and admire the stunning camera work!