Black Samurai (1977)

Dir. Al Adamson



Black Samurai is great. It's one of the last Jim Kelly movies that I actually watched but I've known about it since I was about 8 years old. I always wanted to rent it from Video Movies Unlimited in Harker Heights when I was a kid, but probably rented something dumb like Make Them Die Slowly or Rawhead Rex instead. Jim Kelly pulls people's arms back and kicks their spine! He's usually sporting a suede jogging outfit at any given time. His sidekick looks like Rick Reed. For some strange reason, Dan actually sat down with me and watched this movie. The scene where Jim Kelly fights a hawk is crazy. He boxes it. Right after this movie came out, Al Adamson worked with Jim Kelly again in another trashy masterpiece known as Death Dimension (aka Freeze Bomb, or The Kill Factor). There's a clamshell VHS version of Black Samurai on Video Gems. I just rented the DVD from I Luv Video on Airport. There's a scene with a dungeon full of cobras in this movie. Available at Vulcan and I Luv Video.

NOTE: The second I was done posting this blog, I looked up and saw Jim Kelly on the TV screen. Dan was changing channels and Enter The Dragon was on. How weird.

Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain (1983)

Dir. Tsui Hark





If you haven't seen the original version of Zu Warriors Of The Magic Mountain, you're in for some shit.There's a good DVD version that Tai Seng put out, but the VHS version looks great also. Really good for when you have friends over that can shut the fuck up during a movie.

Wavelength (1982)

Dir. Mike Gray





Wavelength is a movie that used to come on TV a lot when I was a kid. It's pretty entertaining. Robert Carradine from Revenge Of The Nerds is in it and so is the fabulously trashy looking Cherie Currie from the 70's all-girl rock band the Runaways. Currie's character can hear voices coming from what turns out to be a secret underground Air Force bunker in the Hollywood hills. Her and her boyfriend go investigate inside the bunker one night and get caught. They learn that the voices she was hearing are coming from 3 aliens that are being kept alive in a chamber within the bunker. The people in charge of the bunker try to bury her and her boyfriend alive with the aliens. The boyfriend helps the aliens escape and then they all flee out to the desert. There's not too much action, but there's plenty of weirdness including a psychedelic scene where the aliens are using mirrors to soak up the sun's energy out in the desert. There's also a great synthesizer score done by Tangerine Dream. All in all not a mind-blower, but definitely worth checking out for 80's trash pleasure alone. Available at I Luv Video on VHS in the Sci-Fi section.

Never Too Young To Die (1986)

Dir. Gil Bettman




This movie is so out of control I don't even know where to begin. It may be one of the greatest 80's movies ever made. It's main stars are John Stamos, Vanity, and Gene Simmons (playing a psychotic hermaphrodite). Simmons' character Velvet Von Ragnar is trying to take over the country by poisoning all of the nation's drinking water. He looks like a cross between Patti Labelle and Divine. He has a long, sharpened fingernail that he stabs people with. He does a drag routine at a club wearing this hideous Vegas / Rockettes outfit and sings a song that is so bad it's hard to watch in the privacy of your own home. John Stamos plays Lance Stargrove, a gymnast who lives in a college dorm with a nerd roommate who invents weapons and wears neon clothing. Vanity plays the role of Danja Deering, driving a nice Corvette, kicking ass and killing bad guys. Stargrove's dad is killed by Von Ragnar and afterwards he inherits his farm. While there, he loads up on uzi's and has sex with Danja. His nerd roomate shows up and they cruise around on a crotch rocket killing bad guys. Von Ragnar keeps going back and forth between being a man and a woman and every scene with him in it is surreal. I was having nightmares with his character in them last night because of this movie. I think Gene Simmons is really embarrassed by his role in this film, because it's never been put on DVD and all the clips on youtube have been pulled. It's a shame because I think this movie would really blow people's minds. I mean, it's really, really insane. I've never seen anything like it. So fucking recommended!! Only available on VHS at I Luv Video on Airport.



UPDATE:
I just realized that this incredible movie will be playing at the Alamo Ritz theater for Terror Tuesday on April 7th at 10:15. Now all of you can see it. If you don't show up, you're missing out!
Here's Zack's review: Here

Hanoi Rocks

Hanoi Rocks are phenomenal. They're one of my all-time favorite bands. Everyone thinks they're hair metal but that's one of the biggest misconceptions about them. They predated all of that shit. There's something about them that is genuinely mystifying. They were from Helsinki, Finland. They started in 1979. Guitarist Andy McCoy had been in Briard, a punk band that had released a few 7" records in 1977. Their first album came out in 1981, and by 1985 they had broken up. They did 5 studio albums and an amazing double live LP. Singer Michael Monroe had a very extreme rock star persona that went beyond comic book proportions. All of the stories about them ripping off bands and bands ripping them off are true and understandable but uninteresting at this point. If you look deeper, you will see that they were a very original band that stood alone. There was a drugged-out, hyper-active image to this band that co-existed with a vibe of sophistication. There's something very powerful about a band that look like junkie drag queens and play music that sounds like a hybrid of the Ramones, Little Richard, and African-Psychedelic-Tribal-Punk. Looking at the pictures on the inner sleeve to Back To Mystery City makes you feel like they were the future of rock music at the dawn of the 80's. Unfortunately the death of their second drummer Razzle (who replaced original drummer, Gyp Casino) signaled the end of the band. In December of 1984, he was killed in a car crash caused by Vince Neil, singer of Motley Crue. The two were both drunk speeding around in Neil's car when they crashed head-on onto another vehicle. Razzle was killed instantly and Vince Neil did 15 days in jail. Nowadays, Neil owns his own brand of tequilla. Axl Rose re-released all of their albums on CD over a decade ago, but they've all gone out of print since then. Your best bet is finding them used, preferably on vinyl.

Original Discography:
Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks LP (1981)
Oriental Beat LP (1982)
Self Destruction Blues LP (1983)
Back To Mystery City LP ( 1984)
2 Steps From The Move LP (1984)
All Those Wasted Years 2 LP LIVE (1985)

Summer Of Fear (1978) aka Stranger In Our House

Dir. Wes Craven


Here's a movie I stumbled upon by accident. It turned out to be a TV movie from '78 directed by Wes Craven without me even knowing it at the time. To put into perspective the time frame in which this film was released, think of this: Wes Craven was hot off the heels of The Hills Have Eyes, while Linda Blair was just getting done with Exorcist II: The Heretic. She was just around 19 years of age when this was made. Her hair in this movie is out of control. 70's curling iron teased and sprayed to the max. But then again that's half of the appeal of something like this. I mean, the actual act of diving into a movie like this and actually being willing to give yourself over to the experience is something to be proud of in and of itself. But that's a snobby way of looking at it. I actually really like stuff like this and would be happy to watch it all day long. There's a part in this movie where Linda Blair gets hives on her face and she's so pouty and amazing, I really can't describe how bad-ass it is. This movie is about her being a rich girl on a ranch and her cousin comes to live with her. The cousin is crazy and turns out to be a witch. It was based on a best-selling young adult novel around at the time. Poor Linda starts having trouble with all sorts of stuff including the aforementioned hives breakout as well as a horse riding accident which leads to her horse being put to sleep. She discovers all the evidence she needs after tearing her cousin's belongings apart and in one scene discovering a bizarre sweet potato / yam voodoo doll with hair that looks kinda like her horse. This part of the movie is confusing but good. Eventually there's a conclusion, but you've forgotten why by then. Available at I Luv Video on Airport in the Wes Craven Horror Directors wall on DVD and VHS.

Here's a great clip

For old times sake