Greetings and salutations

• This is an update from a previous post. I thought it was needed to welcome anyone who may have missed it the first time
  
  Greetings and thanks for being here. Thanks to my friend Brendan Tobin for introducing me to this wonderful spot. Up until today, it was blogging on MySpace...and we all know no one goes there anymore. 
  

  A quick introduction before moving onto something else. I'm middle aged, married to the same woman for 20 interesting years, with two daughters: a middle school student and a pre-schooler. We live in the same house since a little less than a year after we got married, though it has become larger in the last few years as we added a second floor almost four years ago, turning our modest ranch into a Colonial I'll be paying for until I am in my 80's. My wife teaches 5th grade and I toil in the world of retail, where I have resided for close to 35 years.I suffer from Bi-Polar 1 and suffer intense bouts of depression. I have been a writer, a videographer and a musician. I now video tape my family(mostly photograph...but still video tape every now and then), write for pleasure and play keyboards in the band Briar Rose. We have recently re;eased our newest CD. It's called DARK LORD and it's available all over the place or from us.I enjoy reading, especially comics, all types of music, and numerous films and television shows. From 1995 through 2000, I was the editor and publisher of a little fanzine called THE PODIUM: a grassroots publication dedicated to "comics and everything else". After being a monthly printed 'zine, it became a website until AOL shut down their Hometown pages in October of 2008. A great many reviews and interviews were published, some of which will eventually represented here, for posterity.

  
  

  I'll tell more in future blogs, but for now, I stop with that...mostly because my 4 year old is cuddling with me, making it almost impossible to write with two hand, while watching SUPER FRIENDS. Yes, she is my little superhero. So, for now, I represent an old MySpace blog that is still relevant now. It's about some of my favorite guilty pleasure films. I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading.

   I got to enjoy a rare treat recently when, after many years of seeing it in truncated versions, mostly on television in the mid-Eighties, I got to buy and watch the legendary 1973 film WALKING TALL. For the uninitiated, the film, which can't be called a true biography but is loosely based on real events, tells the story of real life Sheriff Buford Pusser, a former professional wrestler who becomes sheriff of McNair County, Tennessee. Starring Joe Don Baker, this film, made for about $500,000 went on to great fame in the annals of grind house cinema because of its' violent nature and hero driven revenge angle. Heroes and villains alike get shot, stabbed, run down with cars, beaten with large sticks and even the family dog gets shot.
  
  
  
  And that's when I realized how much I truly love grind house films. And yes, this IS a grind house film, even though it found great success in mainstream theaters where audiences allegedly stood up and cheered at the end of the film. At least, that is what the movie ads claimed.
  
  Okay, so we all know Quentin Tarrantino and Robert Rodriguez embraced and popularized the genre in their PLANET TERROR/DEATH PROOF homage films, but what do you really know about grind house films? Named for the type of theaters that played them, typically they are Exploitation films, shot on shoestring budgets, featuring over the top depictions of sex, violence and gore. Within the grind house genre, there are sub-genres including kung fu, horror, sexploitation, blaxploitation, and spaghetti Westerns. They would play on triple or larger bills in rundown neighborhood theaters where you would take your life in your hands or, if you were lucky, drive-ins where you and your buddies could down a six or two, smoke some of mother nature and have a grand old time for $5 a carload.
  
  So I REALLY love grind house films and the list of my favorites could go on for pages. And my list tends to shift from true grind house to mainstream grind house with films like VANISHING POINT, JOE, EAT MY DUST and pretty much anything Claudia Jennings starred in such as TRUCK STOP WOMEN, MOONSHINE COUNTY EXPRESS(with Maureen McCormick) and THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE.
  
   Growing up in the 70's, I was lucky enough to see some of my favorite films during their first or second release, usually at the drive-in where you could easily be hampered by really bad projection issues. Case in point, seeing SUPERVIVIENTES DE LOS ANDES(or SURVIVE, as it was released here in 1976) at the drive-in in 1976 because of the hype surrounding the gory cannibalism depicted in the film. Could have fooled me! The projected image was so dark that it was virtually unviewable. My friends and I spent most of the night trying to pick up the three scared girls in the car next to us.
  
  
  

  

  
  
  Anyway, if you didn't get to see the films, you heard about them in whispers among fans of the genre and from friends who may have gotten to see these legendary films. A perfect example was the buzz the surrounded SNUFF, a 1976 film which purportedly featured a real murder to climax the film. This became a legend among film fans, although it was banned in a number of cities because of the content, further fueling the legend. In actuality, this Roberta and Michael Findlay film, well known sleaze merchants of the Seventies for their 'Flesh trilogy', was about a series of Mansonesque murders. The film's final scene involving a cast member being dismembered and gutted live on-camera. This murder was actually a simulated murder shot much later than the rest of the film at the insistence of the film's distributor. But a fake Women Against Pornography protest and an article about snuff films in the New York Times helped fuel the fire and the mythic tradition.
  
  
  
  
  A great deal of my interest in grind house films were fostered by my old friend Mike Vraney at Something Weird Video. Back in the early Nineties, Mike started his business in Seattle by selling video tapes of lost exploitation films. He ended up cutting distribution deals with some of the legends in the business including Harry Novak, Doris Wishman, David F. Friedman, and Herschell Gordon Lewis. Back in the day, I was good for at least one order every two months to Mike.
  
  But, for now, here's a list, in alphabetical order, of some of my favorite grind house flicks. Some of these I was lucky enough to see on the big screen and others were so tough to come by that I had to wait for bootlegged VHS or ultimately DVD release.
  
  THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971) The first great 'women in prison' film. Stuck in a Philippine prison,  Pam Grier and a bunch of other female prisoners race cockroaches, fight in the mud, and deal with a crazy guard who tortures them all every night. When they finally escape, it's a jungle chase with guns galore. Inspired a virtual boatload of  imitators. It's got sex, violence, shower scenes, guns and some of the wildest dialogue ever. Other great flicks in the genre include 99 WOMEN(which actually came first), BIG BIRD CAGE, CAGED HEAT, CHAINED HEAT, WOMEN IN CAGES and REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS.
  
  
  
  BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (1974) Sam Peckingpah's masterpiece of  violence and sleaze. It is a film that some critics have called the worst film ever made while others, including Roger Ebert, have said it's the "greatest film of all time". Warren Oates character gives up everything he has to collect a bounty that has been placed on the head of…you guessed it…Alfredo Garcia. Oates travels around the Mexcian countryside talking to the severed hit while trying to evade gay hitmen. Wow! This is a trip worth taking.
  
  

  

  
  
  CANNIBAL FEROX (1981). Released in the U.S. as LET THEM DIE SLOWLY, it's the story of a bunch of drug dealers who abuse the local natives until the natives turn the tables. Oh yeah, it's a gore-fest! A native has his eye dug out and is then castrated. One of the bad guys gets the top of his head sliced off so the natives can eat his brains. Piranha attack a wounded man. A girl is hung by her nipples. Genitals get sliced and diced and eaten!  A really gross little Italian import which, if you have the guts, should be watched with the following film.
  
  
  
  
  CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980). Again, another one of those films thought to be reality instead of fiction. Filmed on location in the Amazon, the film is about four filmmakers who disappear in the jungle. A rescue mission is launched and the fun goes from there as an NYU professor finds the lost footage revealing the atrocities committed on natives and filmmakers alike. Filled with graphic gore and violent sex, (like a fetus buried alive in the mud and a native woman impaled on a stake), it also features the real killing of some real animals, which sends most film freaks and animal rights activists up the wall. It was banned in Italy upon its' initial release and director Ruggero Deodato, was arrested and accused of making a snuff film until he produced the very much alive actors. Truly a repulsive film which, albeit minus the gore in this one, heavily influenced films such as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and CLOVERFIELD.
  
  
  

  

   THE CHEERLEADERS (1973) This film, along with a lot of teenage girls get naked for a good cause films,  was a staple of Seventies drive-in trips and inspired films as diverse as PORKY'S and MALLRATS. The team tries to help get Jeannie laid and themselves as well. Unfortunately they wear out the football team before the big game and are forced to do the same to the opposing team. Everyone has sex in this film. One girls has sex with the head coach. Another in a car going through a car wash. There's a great bit on a school bus scored to a Mexicali beat while there are also encounters on an exercise bike, in the school showers an a toe job of epic proportions. Originally rated X upon its' initial release, this film has been run in more cut and uncut versions than you can imagine. It was followed up by THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS and REVENGE OF THE CHEERLEADERS. All three typify the genre. 
  
  
  
  THE CORPSE GRINDERS (1972). This gem ran for years on a triple bill with THE EMBALMER (1965) and THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS (1966). Well, the owners of  the Lotus Cat Food Company run out of money and start digging up the dead and killing folks to grind them into cat food. However the cats who eat it turn on their masters and eat them! It's a Ted V. Mikels masterpiece populated with gore, gratuitous nudity and some of the ugliest people committed to film. Not really scary, not really titilating. Just plain weird.
  
  
  
  DEADLY WEAPONS (1970) Doris Wishman was one of the true pioneers in the realm of sexploitation films. Not as disturbing as LET ME DIE A WOMAN, this gem had large newspaper ads and postcards mailed to unsuspecting homeowners that featured star Chesty Morgan displaying her rather inhuman bust (73-32-36). Large breasted stripper takes revenge on the mobsters who kill her boyfriend with the only weapons she has. Yes, she smothers them to death. Morgan also starred in Wishman's secret agent film DOUBLE AGENT 73.
  
  
  
  
  FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE (1977) Here is a film that set race relations back a about 100 years! A redneck (William Sanderson of DEADWOOD and NEWHART fame) breaks out of jail with his Asian and Mexican buddies and holes up at a black minister's house. The minister's daughter gets raped, a baby gets terrorized and a child gets murdered. Some of the most racist dialogue to ever grace a movie, you get hard-edged softcore sex, a lynching and some high end violence. Another film you'll want to take a bath after viewing.
  
  
  
  FLAVIA THE HERETIC (1974) This is one of those films you often heard about but never got the chance to see. Luckily, it has finally been released on DVD. It's 'nusploitation in the 17th century. Our heroine gets imprisoned in a monastery where she witnesses rape and torture. She falls in love with a Muslim invader and begins to question her faith. This film is loaded with atrocities including loads of lesbianism, impaling, nipple slicing and a legendary skinning scene. Nudity abounds along with a drug-induced hallucination inside a the carcass of a cow.
  
  
  
  
  

  

  FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973) and BLOOD FOR DRACULA (1974). This gem from the Andy Warhol school of film making was released in 3D and featured some of the most gut wrenching, eye popping of visuals. Udo Kier chews scenery as the mad doctor and also has sex with a potential bride of the monster while fondling her innards. If you watch this, you have to watch DRACULA as part of the same bill. Funnier that FRANKENSTEIN, as Dracula most drink 'wirgin' blood. Anything less will make him violently ill. So the handyman(Joe Dallesandro with a very prominent Brooklyn accent) runs around trying to deflower the 'wirgins' before old Drac can get to them. Truly the funniest vampire spoof ever made!
  
  I DRINK YOUR BLOOD (1971) This film spent years paired with the inferior zombie film I EAT YOUR SKIN. A group of hippie Satanists take residence in a town and torment the citizens. A little kid decides to inject rabies into the meat pies the hippies eat and the next thing you know, is they begin foaming at the mouth and the bloody fun begins. Beheadings, impalings, cannibalism and other barbaric deeds run wild amongst the hippies and the now infected towns people. A charming, badly acted slice of drive-in Americana.
  
  ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS (1975) What more could you ask for: crazy lady Nazi who conducts sadistic experiments to prove that women were more capable of enduring pain than men. Dyanne Thorne whips them, puts them in pressure chambers, gives them infectious diseases, burns them and commits so many atrocities you'll wince with pain and pleasure. Oh yeah: it was shot on the same sets as HOGAN'S HEROES. And don't miss the three sequels: ILSA, HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHIEKS, ILSA, TIGRESS OF SIBERIA  and ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN
  
  
  
  I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978). Also known as DAY OF THE WOMAN, this wonderful piece of  trash cinema tells the tale of a woman who is attacked and raped by a group of men. And when all is said and done, she gets her revenge by using all manner of implements. Roger Ebert called this film "a vile bag of garbage". Yeah, it pretty much is all of that and a bag of peanuts.
  
  LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972). First film directed by horror meister Wes Craven and produced by future FRIDAY THE 13TH main man Sean Cunningham, this film will make you want to take a bath when you're through. One of the most intense films I have ever seen., Two teenage girls get kidnapped, raped and eventually murdered by a group of psychopaths. Here's a twist: they take refuge at the house of one of the girls' and when the parents find out what has happen, it's a sudden revenge in the bloodiest of manners including oral castration of one of the crazies. A totally depressing film, it was violent for 1972 and still manages to freak out today.
  
  

  

  LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT (1975) Not a true grind house film, but one featuring one of the most legendary adult stars. Falling after DEEP THROAT and before she became a strong advocate against pornography, this film documents the actress' fictional running in the 1976 presidential race. So she woes and beds middle America in an effort to reunite the country. It's T&A  meets THE MONKEES as bad jokes are thrown around with naked bodies. And don't forget the jive talking, hillbilly chimpanzee
  
  MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970). The first U.S. film where they distributed "stomach distress bags" when you went into the theater in case you were sickened by the blood and guts. And it was rated V for violence. To make its' success even more assured, it was paired on a drive-in bill with LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Set in Austria in the 1700's, it's a softcore bloody period film about witch hunting. Well, that means victims burned at the stake, pricked in the face or stomach, stretched on a rack, drowned and branded. Not to mention the most famous scene where Gaby Fuch's tongue is torn out! Throw in some well placed sex and general nudity and you've got a winner.
  
  

  

  RETURN OF THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS (1978) This film is also known as CRIPPLED AVENGERS, MORTAL COMBAT and CAN QUE. If you're going to watch a kung fu film, it should have been made by the Shaw Brothers studios. It was this film which led to the Shaws greatest success and the years 1979 to 1983 led to numerous Venoms sequels of sorts like KID WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, SUPER NINJAS, and KILLER ARMY. Four heroes with disabilities fight the evil Hai Chen who is armed with special steel claws and is actually responsible for their disabilities. The heroes band together to overcome their shortcomings and take on the villain.  A beautiful film to look at, it is filled with quality acting, stylish action and some silly humor. Although coming much later than many of the alleged kung fu classics, this is the benchmark that all Hong Kong action films tried to attain.
  
  

  

  UNHOLY ROLLERS (1973) What probably began life as a low budget version of KANSAS CITY BOMBER took on a life of its' own as the definitive Roller Derby movie. . . not that there is a genre for that! Claudia Jennings quits her job at the cat food factory and becomes the star of a roller derby team. It's a rags to riches to rags story that doesn't take a lot of grey matter to get through. Jennings and the other actresses look the part and it's dumb fun. Go search for some of the handful of Jennings films mentioned earlier and have yourself a Claudia selazefest!
  
  

  

  ZOMBIE (1979) This Lucio Fulci classic was released in the U.S. as DAWN OF THE DEAD 2 and the only thing it has in common with the Romero classic is the title and a bunch of hungry zombies. Zombies come to New York. Well, that's the basic plot. The gore factor is off the charts, there is a great shark vs. zombie underwater battle, lots of gore, death and destruction and, did I mention there's a lot of gore? A typical living dead movie that just ratchets the gross out meter to 10.