Challenge the Devil, 1963

A while back I got the Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Volume I boxset that Severin put out.

As you can guess the set contains films Lee did in Europe, I do believe three of the movies in this set were filmed while Lee was in Italy for three months!

In Challenge the Devil, also known as Katarsis and also Sfida al Diavolo, Lee plays the Devil/Lord of the Castle. 

He is also in this film probably in total give or take around ten minutes! I have read that Lee states he was only on the set for about a week and never saw the film afterwards.

The plot is about a group of people who seem to live a rowdy lifestyle of drinking and not caring about others and pretty much causing trouble. They end up in at a castle where they meet Lee's character who has them explore the castle for a woman, in which they are haunted and forced to realise their errors and to try become better people.

The story is told by one of the gang who has now due to his experience became a monk and is now himself trying to help a friend come to her senses and do the right thing....

This film is ok, not exactly amazing and think they definitely tried to cash in with having Lee in it as a big star to draw people in.

Also, the film starts off more like a crime thriller then slowly moves into a weak gothic horror. There is a scene which feels more like it was set just to highlight a singer which to me doesn't add to this film, if it was cut it may have helped the film flow a bit better as I did think at times it dragged.

It is also worth noting that this film was sort of missing for nearly 50 years, not because negatives were lost but because it was that bad that it was more likely hidden away. But I guess it maybe one for the Christopher Lee completists but be prepared that it is not that great!

Another Son of Sam, 1977

 

This film is a bit weird, a proto-slasher that was filmed in 1975 and not released until 1977.

Has bugger all to do with any connection to the actual Son of Sam, David Berkowitz. Think they just cashed in on the title to get people to go see this film when it finally was released. I have read it was originally called Hostages but changed to as I said before to cash in on the Son of Sam murders.

Plot is a killer escapes from a psychiatric hospital on and goes on a killing spree around a college town, causing a headache for the local police who eventually get the SWAT team and the killers mother in to stop him!

Another Son of Sam isn't great, mean it is watchable, but I found there were to many freeze frames that lingered and some scenes that were daft like the scene with singer Johnny Charro that seemed longer then it should have been! The film isn't even that longer at about 71 minutes but still feels a bit too long and little all over the place.

Did find some interesting stuff from IMDB from people that worked on this film, that a lot of the cast were local, and some were local TV newscasters!

Also, someone wrote that they poured money into this film but never seen it or heard from the director again! Thinking maybe the story behind how this film got made may be better than the film itself!

I wouldn't go out my way to rewatch this, but it was an extra on AFGA's release of The Zodiac Killer Blu-ray, that's if anyone is interested in giving it a watch....

Enys Men, 2022

 

I can't really explain the plot of Enys Men as it's very sparse in that it centres around a woman on an island in the spring of 1973, off the Cornish coast (I've read that Enys Men is Cornish for 'Stone Island') where is observing and recording details.

It then descends into a journey of what is real on this island.

After watching it, I think the trippiness of the story is maybe three timelines of the island blending into one which all involve the main character, maybe the present day the isolation of the island is affecting the woman while on it?

I really enjoyed this film, it at times if at all may not make any sense on first watch, but there is a charm about it that will make me watch this a lot! 

The director, Mark Jenkin, has did a great job of making this film, shot on 16mm it helps give the feel as if it was filmed back in the early 70's. The cinematography and soundtrack both work excellent in helping create a bleak lonely environment within the film.

Though while watching it I did think that some of the shots reedited or even extra shots could be used to make a sort of music video of Lux Ferrari's 'Petite Symphonie Intuitive Pour Un Paysage De Printemps', or at least in my head it kind of works!

There was one shot in the film that reminded me of Robert Altman's Images, which is a great film and maybe to a certain extent similar to Enys Men.

Enys Men didn't get out on the big screen as much, fact think where I live only one place played it and think it's release in the states was extremely limited. It's not a film for everyone but think a lot of people would enjoy it. It is available to stream on the BFI player if you subscribe to that and there is a blu ray release out which is the way I saw it!

I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses, 1978

One of the stranger films to be on the video nasties list is this Canadian drama film. I believe it was loosely based on a real-life murder case/trail.

The film is about a man called Charles Kruschen who was a Hungarian immigrant who came to Canada as a refugee in the 1950's and worked his way up to become a wealthy real estate developer. He marries a model called Magdalene and has a family but over the years she likes spend more and more which becomes a strain between the two.

Eventually Magdalene is murdered at home and it is found that Charles had plotted to have her killed, though during the court trail it seems both were trying to bump each other off.....

I'm not sure how exactly this film ended up on the video nasties list as for the most part this film is fairly boring as hell, more like a longer version of say Law and Order. Maybe the scene where Magdalene gets bludgeon to death may be the reason, but who knows!

Compared to other films on the video nasties list this is pretty tame but like a lot of them, it is also pretty rubbish!

It was one film I had wanted to see for ages due to trying to see all the films on the nasties list and I can say it is one I won't be in a rush to see again!

It has finally had a Blu Ray release by Severin Films in the States (region free), but would not be surprised if say 88 Films released it over here in the UK.

Zombie Lake, 1981

 Low budget and I mean low budget horror film from France, which follows a similar story of Nazi zombies!

German soldiers killed by partisans in an ambush during the second world war are dumped in the local lake, which we find out later has a dark secret regarding witchcraft ad has the name, "lake of the dammed".

Ten years later a woman goes missing after swimming in the lake, to which we find the lake has somehow turned the dead German soldiers into zombies and thus the village locals are scared the dead Germans are out for revenge.

There is also a subplot where one of the German undead finds his daughter he had with a local who nursed him during the war when he was wounded. Instead of being a blood thirty monster like the rest if his unit, he can realise this is his daughter. Though this leads to the mayor using the daughter's relationship with her dead father to get rid of the dead which leads them to burning the crap out of all of them with flamethrowers in a mill!

Zombie Lake will not please a lot of hardcore horror fans and may find it slightly slow and boring. Jess Franco was originally lined up to direct and had apparently worked on some of the plot but fell out with the film's distributor over the budget of the film.

Jean Rollin was then asked to direct not long before they went to film Zombie Lake.

Rollin would later go on to say if he knew how bad the script was, he would not have done it. He also stated he did it as a favour to a friend.

Where Rollin, I would say was fairly decent at making a film with now much money, this does not really suit his style of filming making and I suppose he did not have time or was given any chance to have some input on the script. If you want a good Rollin zombie-esque film, Grapes of Death is some fine Rollin goodness!

I thought the film was ok, mean it probably needed some more padding out with the script and think if Rolling had the chance to change parts and a bit more money to the budget it may have been better, though what we do have is decent enough to watch and have a laugh at.

Oasis of the Zombies, 1982

 As much as I appreciate the films of Jess Franco, he sure does knock out some terrible films at times.

Oasis of the Zombies is terrible, but it is watchable and a bit cheesy in places, but this isn't a serious film so can't hold that against it!

During the Second World War, the Nazis are transporting gold and tracking down some Allied troops that are in the desert. However, the allies have the upper hand and ambush them, and a fire fight happens where, the allied Captain is wounded but manages to be saved by a local Sheik. The Captain recovers and has a child (which he does not find out to later) with the Sheik's daughter, however she dies during childbirth.

Forward twenty years later, the Captain is working with some treasure hunters to locate the Oasis where he was wounded in hunt of the German gold, however he is betrayed and killed by his friend who runs off with the information the Captain had to the whereabouts of the Oasis and the gold. When the Captains friend and his group come to the Oasis, they are greeted by the corpses of the Afrika Corps who are now the undead and protecting the gold....

In the meantime, the Captain’s son learns of his death and decides with his friends to go seek the Oasis after reading his dad's letters and journals. He also encounters his grandad, the Sheik for the first time. They also meet another group that are filming around the area and both groups join to find the gold.

And as in most cases with films like that, they are hunted down by the undead, until only the Captain's son and his girlfriend are left and they figure how to destroy the undead. They are rescued by the Sheik and despite not finding any gold they do leave with their lives...

Oasis, as I say is bad but watchable. I did think there could have been some explanation to why only the Nazis that died at the Oasis became the undead and not any of the dead Allied soldiers!

Some of the zombies make up are laughable, one kind of looks like they cut a ping pong ball in half and used them for his eyes and they look like they are popping out his head! 

I have read that when Franco filmed this, he also filmed bits at the same time for a Spanish language version. In which he replaced two of the characters with other actors, one being Franco's later wife  Lina Romay. Though this version of the film is lost, though would not be surprised if in years to come it is found. Though the Spanish version is supposed to be slightly longer and has a bit more gore to it, but until it is found we will probably never know!

A Climax of Blue Power, 1974

Eddie is a young man who works as a night watchman due to being rejected for the police force for being too short. 

However, this has not stopped him at night dressing as an officer of the law and riding around in his car made up to look like a police vehicle. He picks up street workers under the pretence of arresting them and takes advantage of them for his own personal gratification.

One day while out near the beach, he hears an agreement from a nearby house and witnesses a wife murder her husband. This leads Eddie to have delusions that if he takes this into his own hands, he will prove that he is fit to be a police officer.

Though it doesn't go to plan and Eddie becomes the sleazy police officer and tries to make her pay his way.....

A Climax of Blue Power was not what I expected it to be, to be fair, I really didn't read the synopsis well and bought it on a whim and other people saying it was decent.

The storyline is good and could have been fleshed out a bit more to make it more a crime/thriller but nope! What we get is a bit of a half-arsed story with added adult inserts which don't work as the people in them don't even look like the person in the main role!

Believe this film comes under the "roughie" genre, which from a quick google search is a subgenre of sexploitation cinema where more violence and sadism are abundant. I think you could probably call it cinema for incels!

If the porn was removed from this film and maybe as I've mentioned the storyline fleshed out a bit more this could have been more of an easier watch. Mean there isn't many adult films I'm aware of that have a police chase at the end of the movie!

A Climax of Blue Power, is definitely a film I will not be in a hurry to rewatch