It may be hot as hell, but the array of oddball cult hits available this month on Blu-ray is even hotter. From an amazing box set of the films of Ray Dennis Steckler; to the inadvertently hilarious Shriek of the Mutilated; to David Cronenberg’s thrilling return to body horror; to a visually striking Finnish fantasy film; to a film favorite by Larry Cohen given a 4k upgrade; not to mention a bizarre folk horror experiment by Alex Garland, this is a month of unending treats.
The Incredibly Strange Films of Ray Dennis Steckler (Severin) A mind-boggling, jaw-dropping, 10-disc box set devoted to the films of crackpot directorial auteur Ray Dennis Steckler. The goofy-looking Steckler (aka Cash Flagg) is best known for his outlandish monster musical The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. In that film Steckler plays the lead as a man obsessed with a carnival stripper but hypnotized by a gypsy fortuneteller and transformed into a murderous, mutant fiend. With gaudy, glitzy, bonkers musical numbers that melt your brain, this loony wonder is just a morsel of Steckler’s whacked-out features. The Thrill Killers is a gritty, hardboiled shocker about three psychos who escape from an asylum and attack women in L.A. Liz Renay (Desperate Living) also stars in this black & white wonder. Rat Pfing a Boo Boo is about two dopes who accidentally become crime-fighting heroes. One of my favorites is Wild Guitar, which stars Arch Hall Jr. as a rising rock and roll star chewed up by the corrupt business and hopelessly in love with a pretty ice skater. There is an interview with Arch Hall Jr. on this disc. (MST 3000 described him as “Cabbage Patch Elvis” when they skewered this film on TV). There are too many films to mention including his oddball horror movies like Blood Shack and The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid-Row Slasher. These are 4K and 2K scans from the best existing 35mm and 16mm prints and the set even covers his later X-rated films. You can pre-order now. I cannot wait to get my hands on this one!
Crimes of the Future (Decal) “Surgery is the new sex,” is the mantra is director David Cronenberg’s glorious return to body horror. Set in a dystopian future of “accelerated evolution syndrome” where people have been developing unexplained new organs in their bodies. Viggo Mortensen plays Saul Tenser, who is a legend for producing a myriad of weird new inner body anomalies. He turns it all into performance art, along with his beautiful partner Caprice (exquisite Lea Seydoux), where adoring fans watch them surgically remove the mutant organs. His discomfort afterwards forces him to sleep in a pulsating, organic contraption with tubes and moving desiccated arms to help ease his suffering. There is also a renegade faction of revolutionaries led by Lang (Scott Speedman), who have reconfigured their bodies in order to consume plastic and the government wants Saul to infiltrate this subversive group. One has to register these creepy new organs with the National Organ Registry led by Wippet (wonderful Don McKellar) and his skittishly weird assistant Timlin (Kristen Stewart)- who becomes erotically fascinated with Saul watching the automated blades cut into his body during his performance pieces. Cronenberg visually creates a moss green, rusted-over, nightmare landscape and the movie’s strange tone echoes other Cronenberg films like Videodrome, Rabid, eXistenZ and especially Crash when Saul and Caprice ecstatically entwine naked in a monstrous automated machine that slices into their skin.
God Told Me To (Blue Underground) Arguably one of New York maverick director Larry Cohen’s best films. A wildly ambitious mix of thriller and sci-fi weirdness, this stars an excellent Tony Lo Bianco as a NYC detective investigate a series of bizarre crimes: a sniper climbs a water tower with a rifle and guns down strangers; a husband inexplicably murders his family; a cop marching in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade goes homicidal (played by a very young Andy Kaufman). They all say the same thing when they are arrested: “God told me to.” Bianco’s detective is a conflicted soul- secretly devoutly Catholic, he strings along his girlfriend (Deborah Raffin), falsely claiming his wife (Sandy Dennis) won’t give him a divorce. But his investigation into these deranged crimes leads him to a shadowy, secret organization and a weird, messianic man with long hair (Richard Lynch). Is he alien or avenging angel? Wonderfully bizarre, Cohen followed up his wildly popular It’s Alive with this unique, intelligent, ambitious, wildly offbeat 1976 film. The new 4K restoration by Blue Underground is stunning and comes with archival audio commentary by Larry Cohen, interviews with stars Tony Lo Bianco, and audio commentary by film historians Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth. Also, a lively archival Q & A at Lincoln Center with the late, great Larry Cohen.
Men (Lionsgate) Alex Garland’s (Ex Machina) latest is a strange, allegorical, folk horror film starring Jesse Buckley as Harper, a woman trying desperately to heal after the tragic death of her husband. She rents an idyllic, English, 500-year-old country home and the initial rustic beauty of the house and countryside begins to sour after upsetting interactions with the men in the village- from a nasty, foul-mouthed boy wearing a Marilyn Monroe mask; a condescending cop; a misogynist vicar; a disheveled naked man who shows up in her garden (all played by the same actor- wonderful Rory Kinnear). The last half hour, when things surreally go off the deep end, is a test whether you are willing to go with Garland’s bitter exploration of toxic masculinity or not. The cinematography, sound design and performances by Buckley and Kinnear are peerless.
Sampo (Deaf Crocodile) This Finnish fantasy film was released as The Day the Earth Froze and mercilessly mocked on MST 3000. But this is the actual uncut film, un-sabotaged by laughable voiceovers, and it’s pretty astonishing. Based on a Finnish legend “Kalevala” and directed by Aleksandr Ptushko it concerns an evil witch who lives on an island with her troll-like slaves. She kidnaps a virginal blonde maiden in order to get the girl’s supernaturally gifted blacksmith father to create a magical rainbow substance called “Sampo” which produces copious amounts of salt, grain and gold. There are staggering, surreal sequences- the hero rides a glowing red horse across a field of vipers; a mother carries her dead son across a frozen ocean; the witch plunges the world into eternal cold and darkness. To watch this original version is to be dazzled by its magical weirdness, inventiveness and visual beauty. This 4K restoration comes with a new hour-long interview with Mike Nelson, head writer of MST 3000, which is great fun. There is also audio commentary by comic book artist (Swamp Thing) and film historian- Stephen R. Bissette.
Samson & the Seven Miracles of the World (Kino Lorber) Made during the height of the sword-and-sandal muscleman “Peplum” films lensed usually in Italy at the time. More than Steve Reeves or Reg Park I always preferred Gordon Scott as the heroic Maciste: “I was born from the rocks.” Typically, American movies renamed him Goliath or Samson. This is set in the 13th century China while the cruel Tartars have enslaved the people and attempt to kill the rightful Imperial Prince and Princess. Gordon Scott arrives to uproot a tree with soldiers in it, wrestle a tiger and save the young Prince and bring him to safety. The rebel leader Cho (Gabriele Antonini) saves the Princess (Yoko Tani) and together with Maciste they fight to regain the throne. Lavish production design and a huge cast of Asian extras (left-over from the film Marco Polo) make this quite a spectacle. And it was directed by Riccardo Feda (who made the great gothic necrophile chiller The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock).
Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women (Kino Lorber) An enjoyably campy 1979 made-for-TV movie directed by Joseph Pevney (Female on the Beach) about a bunch of men (Peter Lawford, beefy Clint Walker, Steven Keats etc.) traveling in a sea plane thrown off course somewhere in the Pacific who are running out of fuel and make an emergency landing at an island. They discover it’s inhabited by child-like women named “Snow,” “Bambi,” “Flower” and “Chocolate, and led by Lizabeth (Jamie Lyn Bauer) who immediately wants to kill all the men to protect her tribe. Gorgeous Jayne Kennedy is one of these “Beautiful Women.” There are also fearsome, killer natives called “headchoppers” around. This premiered on CBS in 1979 during the period where TV movies ruled on the boob tube, and it may not be evolved from a feminist view-point but it is ludicrous and fun. Great audio commentary by film historian Amanda Reyes and Lance Vaughan.
The Shadowed Mind (Severin) In 1988, when a director abruptly left a project after a day’s shooting and took the script with him, South African filmmaker Cedric Sundstrom was brought in. He assembled actors at a abandoned railway warehouse and, using improvisation and a 10-day rehearsal process, helped create a script about a clinic for sexually dysfunctional patients. The newest arrival is fond of flashing her breasts; one man wanders around clutching a teddy bear; another man is sleeping with a female staffer and also a male patient; one is a 30-year-old virgin; and one dresses like a military captain and wakes up everyone in the morning in full dress uniform. But a mysterious killer starts slashing to death one after another and the head of the clinic, on the verge of receiving a large grant, keeps hiding the bodies. Utilizing a stylized color scheme and filled with startling violence and plenty of full frontal nudity (mostly male for a change), this was banned by the government and barely seen anywhere afterwards. Largely unknown, this artful and strange psychological thriller is a real oddball find and deserves to finally be seen. The disc includes an insightful interview with the director about his career and several of his short films.
Dr. Lamb (Unearthed Films) This 1993 Hong Kong grisly shocker, based on a true crime, stars Simon Yam as a deranged cabbie living in an overcrowded apartment who kills and dissects “bad” women, believing he’s on a mission from God. Danny Lee (who co-directed), plays the cop who catches and brutally interrogates him. (If anything this movie is about hideous police abuse). The scene in which the madman dismembers a victim with a buzz saw, bits of gore landing in the fish tank, is a real chunk-blower. Yam is a chameleon on screen, from the puking, lovesick, cop in Naked Killer (1992) to the villainous gay gangster in Full Contact (1992). He’s quite terrifying here, howling at the moon as he kills. This is a 2K scan from the uncut negative and comes with audio commentary from Art Ettinger and Bruce Holecheck; an Atomic TV interview with Simon Yam and an extra about the golden age of Category III movies.
Shriek of the Mutilated (Vinegar Syndrome) An anthropologist leads an expedition of college students to a remote island in search of the Abominable Snowman (that’s Yeti to you). (Spoiler Alert Ahead). It turns out the monster search is a big ruse- a way for a bloodthirsty cult of cannibals to hunt dinner. In the final, gruesomely romantic scene, the only remaining student is forced to stand over his dead girlfriend while a servant named Laughing Crow, about to slice her up with an electric knife, asks the hapless youth, “light meat or dark?” I have loved this movie helplessly ever since I saw it on Times Square with a rather lively crowd who were howling with derisive laughter at the screen. Directed by Michael Findlay (a legend of sleaze cinema), this Blu-ray is newly scanned in 4k from the 35mm negative. With a fascinating new commentary track by Roberta Findlay, who was cinematographer on the film and was separated from the director at the time this movie was made. She went on to shoot her own wild films. An interview with producer Ed Adlum is aptly entitled “So Bad So Great.”
