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DanXIII

1,297 stories
Blu-ray Review: Mill of the Stone Women (1960)

Blu-ray Review: Mill of the Stone Women (1960)

Writer-type Hans van Arnhim (Pierre Brice) sets out down Holland way to visit the eccentric Professor Gregorius Wahl (Herbert A.E. Böhme) who lives in an old windmill which contains a carousel of female statues, which Hans has been sent to research. Just seems like some shit you’d find at the Playboy Mansion during it’s heyday to me… Anyway, the Prof. carries himself in a manner that just screams “fuckin’ horrible hidden secret”, but Hans continues his work anyway… probably because Wahl’s daughter Elfie (Scilla Gabel) is both easy on the eerie eyeballs, and immediately hot n’ horny for ol’ Handsy Hans… who returns the admiration despite having a full time main-squeeze; namely one Liselotte Kornheim (Dany Carrel)… Kornheim sounds like Valhalla for Nu-metal bands that can’t get into the real deal because they simply don’t rock hard enough… Any-fuckin’-how, push comes to shove, and Hans kinda/sorta murders Elfie… as one does… but she probably wasn’t long for this world as

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 15, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Raiders of Atlantis (1983)

Blu-ray Review: Raiders of Atlantis (1983)

Future Year 1994: Miami U.S. of A. and the sweet disco sounds of Black Inferno by the De Angelis brothers fills the air with the funkiest of fuckin’ funk! Why do I mention the De Angelis brothers at all, well the music that plays as our “heroes” straight up murder a dude in his home sounds a lot like a piece of the score from Anthony Margheriti’s Yor: The Hunter from the Future (which they also composed the music for)… wait, you want to know why those dudes killed that other dude? It’s because Mike Ross (a truly game Christopher Connelly, he of Fulci’s Manhattan Baby and Mattei’s Strike Commando fame) and his partner Mohammed (ne: Washington… though Ross still calls him “Wash”… or more accurately “Warsh”… in a (not so) stunning (because this was made in the early ’80s) and hilariously accented display of cultural insensitivity… oh, and he’s played by Tony King) are top-notch mercenaries employed by the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 10, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984)

Blu-ray Review: Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984)

It’s 2072, and shit is Blade Runner as fuck. In this foggy, moving billboard landscape a new form of extremely popular motorcycle sport has arisen, and no one is better at it than ol’ Drake (Jared Martin, who you may remember from the ultra-gory late ’80s War of the Worlds television show)… and while the fans love him to itty-bitty pieces, the network sees him as a hurdle in the way of promoting further, more deadlier entertainment… namely a program where death row prisoners are offered a chance at redemption by competing in a “to the death” blood sport! A solution is soon reached; send in some whistling dime store Droogs, have them off Drakes’ lady, and when Drake goes Blood Simple on their asses, throw him in the hoosegow… thus making him a criminal and eligible to “participate” in the new gladiatorial games. Once in training he meets his rag-tag team; acid-scarred dude, Fred “the Hammer” Williamson, mohawk karate

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 8, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection (1972 - 1980)

Blu-ray Review: Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection (1972 – 1980)

Nuns… I’m indifferent to them, but some of you find them terrifying… or sexy… or both… and that last lil’ bit is what the folks over at Severin are counting on with their Blu-ray release of Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection! First up we get 1972’s Cristiana Devil Nun: After straight up fucking in front of everyone on an airplane, Cristiana (Toti Achilli) swears to become a nun if she can survive the sudden engine trouble (i.e. being totally engulfed in flame) the plane soon encounters at the stroke of her inauguration into the Mile High Club. True to her word she does indeed enter the convent, but being Cristiana she soon begins having sex like a mother fucker with both an ascot enthusiast of a painter as well as Sister Eleonora (Magda Konopka)… and once she sneaks her boyfriend into the covenant things go completely haywire as everyone’s constant fucking leads to questions of faith and endless debauchery! While

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 8, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Climate of the Hunter (2015)

Blu-ray Review: Climate of the Hunter (2015)

Two sisters, the timid, practical Elizabeth (Mary Buss) and artsy free spirit Alma (Ginger Gilmartin), reconnect with their friend, the suave and worldly writer Wesley (Ben Hall), after two decades apart. Over the course of many (bizarre ’70s era) meals (all announced in separate vignettes), the trio catch up… and we delve deeper and deeper into the triangle’s various psychoses while the atmosphere grows ever more like an extended fever dream where a normal relationship drama becomes something that grows completely into a psychotropic soap opera replete with a “love” triangle, strange offspring, and a whole mess of red wine. Let me sum things up a bit early and announce: “Holy fuck did I love Climate of the Hunter!” Set in a Neo-Romanticized Pseudo-Transylvania (all humble cabins sitting among leafless trees under slate grey skies) of sorts, director Mickey Reece (who also co-wrote the film along with John Selvidge) put a fiercely unique spin on the ol’ vampire biz… yup,

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 2, 2022
4k UHD Review: Mad Max Anthology (1979 - 2015)

4k UHD Review: Mad Max Anthology (1979 – 2015)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own. As if you couldn’t guess from the above. our pals over at Warner Bros. Home entertainment have just released a swell collection of George Miller’s entire Mad Max franchise, all on glorious 4K UHD so you can see every dry grain of sand in those barren locales. First up comes 1979’s Mad Max: Just a few minutes into the future, the roads down Australia-way are a complete battleground thanks to psycho criminals doing whatever the fuck they please, traffic laws be damned! One such miscreant, The Nightrider (Vincent Gil) by name, goes on a rampage injuring police and causing major havoc. Enter “Mad” Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), number one law enforcement machine… and exit the Nightrider in a rather large explosion. This goes over like a fart in a submarine with Nightrider’s pals; the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 1, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Giallo Essentials: Yellow (1973 - 1975)

Blu-ray Review: Giallo Essentials: Yellow (1973 – 1975)

Remember like 5 fuckin’ days ago (give or take) when I reviewed the first edition of Arrow Video’s new Giallo Essentials collections (that one dubbed “red”)? If not head here… All caught up? Peachy. Let’s dive in to the sinister selections present in round two… the “yellow” set (fitting as how “giallo” literally means “yellow”… but I’ll let you discover the German origins of that one on your own… ), if you will… First up comes 1974’s After a naked pregnant woman is found hung from the rafters in an attic (and not unlike an overcrowded submarine, she is packed to the gills with semen), Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) and Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli) spring into action. As the duo dig deeper they discover the victim was part of an under-age teenage prostitution ring whose “clients” (read: abusers) are some of your garden variety high society perverts. As the search widens, the bodies begin piling up…thanks to

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 19, 2021
Blu-ray Review: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968)

Blu-ray Review: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968)

After we see a hairy-handed mystery figure commit murder by straight up throwing snakes at women, we get down to brass tacks with the main narrative of long-time Gamera series director Noriaki Yuasa’s 1968 supernatural shocker, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch. Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) has lived most of her life in an orphanage, but that’s about to change as she is reclaimed by her estranged (emphasis on strange) family, and sent off to live with them which makes her pretty damn happy. That’ll change. You see, the family has secrets… even among themselves… for instance, Sayuri has a sister named Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi) that lives exclusively in the attic after her death was faked two years previous in a mental institution, where she was being treated for her snake obsession. Add to the mix Sayuri’s perpetually missing father, her mentally addled mother, and the governess that is supposed to be taking care of the children (yet she’s seldom

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 18, 2021
Blu-ray Review: Beyond Darkness (1990)

Blu-ray Review: Beyond Darkness (1990)

After a doozy of an opening sequence where a priest, Father George (David Brandon) hears a death row confession from a child murdering, bald headed follower of an evil deity known as Ameth as she’s led away to the electric chair followed by the ghosts of her victims, we get into the monstrous meat and putrid potatoes of Beyond Darkness. A priest, Peter (Gene LeBrock… the community theater Christopher Reeve with just a dash of Tom Cruise for funsies), and his family; wife Annie (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan‘s Barbara Bingham), son Martin (that hospitality pissing mother fucker from Troll 2 himself, Michael Paul Stephenson), and their daughter Carole (Theresa Walker), a fart lovin’ girl that has a desire to dry her hair, but can’t remember the name of a hair dryer… you know what, Carole may have some sort of juvenile Alzheimer’s as she also can’t find her mouth in the dark… move into a house

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 18, 2021
Blu-ray Review: Retribution (1987)

Blu-ray Review: Retribution (1987)

Suicidal artist George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb, who gives the frowniest performance since Mark Frost in Brian Yuzna’s Faust: Love of the Damned) takes a swan dive off a tall building, but after a brief stay-over in The Who’s laser-light tunnel (previously utilized for fucking by Frank Langella in John Badham’s 1979 adaptation of that grand-pappy of all vampire whoppers, Dracula)… which is populated by a screaming, floating zombie head… our hero is revived and sent to stay in an institution. Once there he gets wellish (minus those nightmares where he’s a murderous lunatic) and soon returns to his apartment in the same shitty building he jumped off when this whole debacle began! So about those “nightmares”… George keeps getting involved with random people… and he makes them kill themselves with his newly-acquired glow-y green eyes and evil-ass voice… in-between attending a “welcome home” party in his honor where hookers and little people in fireman’s helmets cavort to records that were

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 18, 2021

More from DanXIII

Blu-ray Review: Mill of the Stone Women (1960)

Blu-ray Review: Mill of the Stone Women (1960)

Writer-type Hans van Arnhim (Pierre Brice) sets out down Holland way to visit the eccentric Professor Gregorius Wahl (Herbert A.E. Böhme) who lives in an old windmill which contains a carousel of female statues, which Hans has been sent to research. Just seems like some shit you’d find at the Playboy Mansion during it’s heyday to me… Anyway, the Prof. carries himself in a manner that just screams “fuckin’ horrible hidden secret”, but Hans continues his work anyway… probably because Wahl’s daughter Elfie (Scilla Gabel) is both easy on the eerie eyeballs, and immediately hot n’ horny for ol’ Handsy Hans… who returns the admiration despite having a full time main-squeeze; namely one Liselotte Kornheim (Dany Carrel)… Kornheim sounds like Valhalla for Nu-metal bands that can’t get into the real deal because they simply don’t rock hard enough… Any-fuckin’-how, push comes to shove, and Hans kinda/sorta murders Elfie… as one does… but she probably wasn’t long for this world as

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 15, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Raiders of Atlantis (1983)

Blu-ray Review: Raiders of Atlantis (1983)

Future Year 1994: Miami U.S. of A. and the sweet disco sounds of Black Inferno by the De Angelis brothers fills the air with the funkiest of fuckin’ funk! Why do I mention the De Angelis brothers at all, well the music that plays as our “heroes” straight up murder a dude in his home sounds a lot like a piece of the score from Anthony Margheriti’s Yor: The Hunter from the Future (which they also composed the music for)… wait, you want to know why those dudes killed that other dude? It’s because Mike Ross (a truly game Christopher Connelly, he of Fulci’s Manhattan Baby and Mattei’s Strike Commando fame) and his partner Mohammed (ne: Washington… though Ross still calls him “Wash”… or more accurately “Warsh”… in a (not so) stunning (because this was made in the early ’80s) and hilariously accented display of cultural insensitivity… oh, and he’s played by Tony King) are top-notch mercenaries employed by the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 10, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984)

Blu-ray Review: Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984)

It’s 2072, and shit is Blade Runner as fuck. In this foggy, moving billboard landscape a new form of extremely popular motorcycle sport has arisen, and no one is better at it than ol’ Drake (Jared Martin, who you may remember from the ultra-gory late ’80s War of the Worlds television show)… and while the fans love him to itty-bitty pieces, the network sees him as a hurdle in the way of promoting further, more deadlier entertainment… namely a program where death row prisoners are offered a chance at redemption by competing in a “to the death” blood sport! A solution is soon reached; send in some whistling dime store Droogs, have them off Drakes’ lady, and when Drake goes Blood Simple on their asses, throw him in the hoosegow… thus making him a criminal and eligible to “participate” in the new gladiatorial games. Once in training he meets his rag-tag team; acid-scarred dude, Fred “the Hammer” Williamson, mohawk karate

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 8, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection (1972 - 1980)

Blu-ray Review: Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection (1972 – 1980)

Nuns… I’m indifferent to them, but some of you find them terrifying… or sexy… or both… and that last lil’ bit is what the folks over at Severin are counting on with their Blu-ray release of Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection! First up we get 1972’s Cristiana Devil Nun: After straight up fucking in front of everyone on an airplane, Cristiana (Toti Achilli) swears to become a nun if she can survive the sudden engine trouble (i.e. being totally engulfed in flame) the plane soon encounters at the stroke of her inauguration into the Mile High Club. True to her word she does indeed enter the convent, but being Cristiana she soon begins having sex like a mother fucker with both an ascot enthusiast of a painter as well as Sister Eleonora (Magda Konopka)… and once she sneaks her boyfriend into the covenant things go completely haywire as everyone’s constant fucking leads to questions of faith and endless debauchery! While

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 8, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Climate of the Hunter (2015)

Blu-ray Review: Climate of the Hunter (2015)

Two sisters, the timid, practical Elizabeth (Mary Buss) and artsy free spirit Alma (Ginger Gilmartin), reconnect with their friend, the suave and worldly writer Wesley (Ben Hall), after two decades apart. Over the course of many (bizarre ’70s era) meals (all announced in separate vignettes), the trio catch up… and we delve deeper and deeper into the triangle’s various psychoses while the atmosphere grows ever more like an extended fever dream where a normal relationship drama becomes something that grows completely into a psychotropic soap opera replete with a “love” triangle, strange offspring, and a whole mess of red wine. Let me sum things up a bit early and announce: “Holy fuck did I love Climate of the Hunter!” Set in a Neo-Romanticized Pseudo-Transylvania (all humble cabins sitting among leafless trees under slate grey skies) of sorts, director Mickey Reece (who also co-wrote the film along with John Selvidge) put a fiercely unique spin on the ol’ vampire biz… yup,

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 2, 2022
4k UHD Review: Mad Max Anthology (1979 - 2015)

4k UHD Review: Mad Max Anthology (1979 – 2015)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own. As if you couldn’t guess from the above. our pals over at Warner Bros. Home entertainment have just released a swell collection of George Miller’s entire Mad Max franchise, all on glorious 4K UHD so you can see every dry grain of sand in those barren locales. First up comes 1979’s Mad Max: Just a few minutes into the future, the roads down Australia-way are a complete battleground thanks to psycho criminals doing whatever the fuck they please, traffic laws be damned! One such miscreant, The Nightrider (Vincent Gil) by name, goes on a rampage injuring police and causing major havoc. Enter “Mad” Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), number one law enforcement machine… and exit the Nightrider in a rather large explosion. This goes over like a fart in a submarine with Nightrider’s pals; the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 1, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Giallo Essentials: Yellow (1973 - 1975)

Blu-ray Review: Giallo Essentials: Yellow (1973 – 1975)

Remember like 5 fuckin’ days ago (give or take) when I reviewed the first edition of Arrow Video’s new Giallo Essentials collections (that one dubbed “red”)? If not head here… All caught up? Peachy. Let’s dive in to the sinister selections present in round two… the “yellow” set (fitting as how “giallo” literally means “yellow”… but I’ll let you discover the German origins of that one on your own… ), if you will… First up comes 1974’s After a naked pregnant woman is found hung from the rafters in an attic (and not unlike an overcrowded submarine, she is packed to the gills with semen), Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) and Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli) spring into action. As the duo dig deeper they discover the victim was part of an under-age teenage prostitution ring whose “clients” (read: abusers) are some of your garden variety high society perverts. As the search widens, the bodies begin piling up…thanks to

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 19, 2021
Blu-ray Review: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968)

Blu-ray Review: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968)

After we see a hairy-handed mystery figure commit murder by straight up throwing snakes at women, we get down to brass tacks with the main narrative of long-time Gamera series director Noriaki Yuasa’s 1968 supernatural shocker, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch. Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) has lived most of her life in an orphanage, but that’s about to change as she is reclaimed by her estranged (emphasis on strange) family, and sent off to live with them which makes her pretty damn happy. That’ll change. You see, the family has secrets… even among themselves… for instance, Sayuri has a sister named Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi) that lives exclusively in the attic after her death was faked two years previous in a mental institution, where she was being treated for her snake obsession. Add to the mix Sayuri’s perpetually missing father, her mentally addled mother, and the governess that is supposed to be taking care of the children (yet she’s seldom

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 18, 2021
Blu-ray Review: Beyond Darkness (1990)

Blu-ray Review: Beyond Darkness (1990)

After a doozy of an opening sequence where a priest, Father George (David Brandon) hears a death row confession from a child murdering, bald headed follower of an evil deity known as Ameth as she’s led away to the electric chair followed by the ghosts of her victims, we get into the monstrous meat and putrid potatoes of Beyond Darkness. A priest, Peter (Gene LeBrock… the community theater Christopher Reeve with just a dash of Tom Cruise for funsies), and his family; wife Annie (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan‘s Barbara Bingham), son Martin (that hospitality pissing mother fucker from Troll 2 himself, Michael Paul Stephenson), and their daughter Carole (Theresa Walker), a fart lovin’ girl that has a desire to dry her hair, but can’t remember the name of a hair dryer… you know what, Carole may have some sort of juvenile Alzheimer’s as she also can’t find her mouth in the dark… move into a house

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 18, 2021
Blu-ray Review: Retribution (1987)

Blu-ray Review: Retribution (1987)

Suicidal artist George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb, who gives the frowniest performance since Mark Frost in Brian Yuzna’s Faust: Love of the Damned) takes a swan dive off a tall building, but after a brief stay-over in The Who’s laser-light tunnel (previously utilized for fucking by Frank Langella in John Badham’s 1979 adaptation of that grand-pappy of all vampire whoppers, Dracula)… which is populated by a screaming, floating zombie head… our hero is revived and sent to stay in an institution. Once there he gets wellish (minus those nightmares where he’s a murderous lunatic) and soon returns to his apartment in the same shitty building he jumped off when this whole debacle began! So about those “nightmares”… George keeps getting involved with random people… and he makes them kill themselves with his newly-acquired glow-y green eyes and evil-ass voice… in-between attending a “welcome home” party in his honor where hookers and little people in fireman’s helmets cavort to records that were

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 18, 2021
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