Vengeance of the Zombies (1973) [Paul Naschy]

Vengeance of the Zombies (1973) [Paul Naschy]

La rebelión de las muertas (original title)
Director: León Klimovsky (as Leon Klimovsky)
Writers: Paul Naschy (screenplay) (as Jacinto Molina), Paul Naschy (story) (as Jacinto Molina)

León Klimovsky's Vengeance of the Zombies draws from many sources.  It presents a jaw dropping mashup of Hindu mysticism, Satanism, and Voodoo, plus references to the  Kali Death cult thuggees and a nod to the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. This willingness to clump all sorts of horror sources together in one movie was a trademark of Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter Paul Naschy (who provided the screenplay). A truly admirable quality from Naschy's large body of work, as uneven or downright weird as it could get, was his love of the genre. He truly was a Glenn Danzig before there was a Glenn Danzig.

Psychomania (1973) [Adventure Horror]

Psychomania (1973) [Adventure Horror]

Director: Don Sharp
Writers: Arnaud d'Usseau, Julian Zimet (as Julian Halevy)

The other day as I was riding my bike around the lake, a line of spectral riders approached in the fog and I tried to remember the name of a movie about undead, Satan worshipping bikers terrorizing a small town. The Wild One, but from Hell. It was on a DVD from Netflix, years before they started streaming.

The Island of Lost Souls (1932) [Horror, Sci-Fi]

The Island of Lost Souls (1932) [Horror, Sci-Fi]

Directed           Erle C. Kenton

Screenplay      Waldemar Young and Philip Wylie,  H.G. Wells (novel)

This nearly 100 year old film is primitive yet effective. As is often the case with older films that lack the visual sophistication of modern movies, the screenplay is everything. The most important elements are related through dialogue, not in action. The story is mesmerizing, beginning with shipwrecked man adrift at sea and ending the revolt of pack of wild human-animal hybrids as the extract horrifying revenge on their creator.

The Cleaning Lady (2018)

The Cleaning Lady (2018) [Stalkers]

Director: Jon Knautz

Writers: Alexis Kendra & Jon Knautz

This is the second movie in what looks to be a 3 movie series dealing with relationships between women where one is in power, and the other is under her. The first was the Brazilian film Good Manners and the next one will be Greta.

For a movie that is supposed to be about women, however, screenwriters John Knautz and Alexis Kendra created their characters as 2 dimensional objects.  Most of the women are vain, selfish and superficial creatures whose prime motivations in life are eating chocolates, getting beauty treatments, shopping, and defining themselves through their relationships with men.

Good Manners (2017) [Foreign Horror]

Good Manners (2017) [Foreign Horror]

IMDB

Trailer

Back in the days before Netflix and mailable DVDs, we used to have to go to the video store to rent VHS cassettes. Luckily, the Putney, Vermont general store had a great video tape collection in the early 1990s! What was especially wonderful, besides their wall of cult favorites, was the full large of foreign movies. Since this was pre-internet days, we didn't have the luxury of looking up titles read about them. All we had was what was on the box and sometimes the boxes lied!

We learned to be wary of movies that were billed as "Triumphs," or "Laughter filled testaments to life!" And the word "Heartwarming" was meant Do not rent this video!" One such South American film, the title escapes me, bore all those labels was about a middle-aged gold digger and her desire  to plan to find a sugar daddy so she can leave her husband and ungrateful children. The climax end takes place in a remote in the jungle where the husband and the elderly sugar daddy incapacitate face each ahead of an oncoming flood. The film ends with the woman leaving both men to drown. As she rushes to safety, she comments that someone always cares for stray dogs.