Devil's Express (1976)

This is a car crash of a film, in so much as it is like a mixture of different genres thrown together, hard. The film starts in ancient China where a demon is imprisoned. We jump to the present day (well 1970s anyway) New York and see Luke (Warhawk Tanzania) show off his martial arts skills with a funk soundtrack. Luke heads to HK with his friend Rodan (Wilfredo Roldan), while there Rodan accidentally releases the demon from it's cell...

The demon makes it's way to NY and begins to terrorise the subway, but above ground a deadly war between black and Chinese gangs rages. Luke gets involved with both gangs, and only he can stop the demon...

So, it is a mix of blaxploitation, kung fu, horror and total weirdness. The film switches between these genres quickly, at times you wonder if you have just sat on the TV remote. 

One of the strangest films you'll ever see, and very gory and violent too. Does it make sense? To be honest not in any way whatsoever. But it doesn't matter, this film is genuinely original and amazing.

Ice Cream Man (1995)

An incredibly bizarre horror film. A new ice cream van arrives in town, the seller being the rather overtly strange Gregory (Clint Howard). Not long after he arrives then people start to go missing. These people, or rather their bodyparts, end up in Gregory's ice cream. The adults in town don't seem to care though but a bunch of kids who call themselves the Rocketeers (and include a kid called Tuna (JoJo Adams) who wears an obvious fat suit for some reason) know Gregory is up to no good...

A couple of detectives (Jan-Michael Vincent and Lee Majors II) are investigating the disappearances and get a hot tip (from the kids) that Gregory is behind it. They search Gregory's ice cream parlour but for some reason do not look in his ice cream van. That isn't the only rather baffling bit of "police" work they do. They go to the asylum, which Gregory was once at, and find freakish scenes of torture and horror, even having to shoot their way out. And then it seems to be all forgotten!

Trashy films like this often make little sense, this makes even less than most. The horror is rather over the top gruesome (including an ice ball inside an ice cream) and the body count is pretty high. There are also a number of intriguing cameos including David Warner as a vicar! The film is a mess, as much a mess as the cops leave Gregory's ice cream parlour in, but it is rather compelling.

The Hand of Night (1968)

An engaging tale of Arabic vampires. Paul (William Sylvester), broken after the deaths of his wife and children in an accident, travels to Morocco. There he meets archaeologist Gunther (Edward Underdown) who is about to open the tomb of a priestess. Paul has already seen Gunther in a nightmare though along with various other strange things...

Then Paul ends up in a mysterious palace where he meets Marissa (Aliza Gur), funnily enough that is the name of the priestess in the tomb. Despite dancing girls and much exotica at night when Paul returns to the palace in the daytime he finds it is just a ruin. With the help of Gunther's assistant Chantel (Diane Clare), Paul seeks to find out what is going on. Why is he being haunted by Marissa? He cheated death, or did he?

An enjoyable horror romp, full of exotic mystery and no little camp. 

The Whispering Shadow (Serial) (1933)

A superbly complicated and fast moving serial full of fights, death defying stunts and mad science. A mysterious crime boss called the Whispering Shadow is stealing valuable items from a storage company. The transport manager Jack (Malcolm McGregor) is out to stop the criminal and uncover his secret identity.

Of course there are a lot of potential culprits, chief among them seems to be Dr Strang (Bela Lugosi) who had a macabre house of waxworks (and a lovely daughter - Viva Tattersall - whom Jack soon has the hots for!) Strang also has a television device, might he also have the radio death ray which the Whispering Shadow uses to kill his victims remotely? Or could it be the radio scientist (Roy D’Arcy)? Obviously it won’t be the apparently layabout and foolish radio operator Sparks (Karl Dane)...

Being a serial of course there are many cliff hangers, red herrings and epic stunts, including an autogyro crashing into a radio tower and a collapsing room. Many shots are fired too in countless shootouts though most are to no avail! (No one could aim straight in these 1930s serials that is for sure.) A terrific over the top serial.

Monster from Green Hell (1957)

There was an obsession with radiation causing giant size mutation in animals in 1950s cinema. This is yet another tale of a rocket taking something up into space (wasps in this case). When the rocket lands the wasps becomes a giant monsters and starts killing everything in their path! Dr Brady (Jim Davis) and Dan Morgan (Robert Griffin) head to Africa to investigate. The path to the remote part of Africa known as Green Hell is tough though, with attacks by tribes of natives and poisoned streams.

Once Brady and Dan reach the village near Green Hell they discover the local doctor (Vladimir Sokoloff) is dead, killed by the monster. They head into Green Hell with the doctor's daughter Lorna (Barbara Turner) to face, and stop, the monsters...

A fairly standard monster sci-fi film, padded out with plenty of stock footage of African safaris. The monster special effects are suitably ridiculous and cheap looking. Fun nonsense if a bit generic.