Wednesday, October 9, 2024

The Screaming Tiger (1972)

A violent martial arts film full of vengeance and anti-Japanese sentiment.

The Japanese (evil of course) kill everyone in a Chinese village. The only survivor of the village is Wang Yu (Jimmy Wang Yu) who has top kung fu skills (of course). He heads to Japan for revenge... and that is largely it. There are more subplots but they are rather underdeveloped. Wang Yu is accompanied (and occasionally scolded and advised) by a man who wears a basket on his head.

So, this is basically just a very long fight scene. But what a fight scene it is too, excellent and innovative fighting is shown many times. The xenophobia makes the film a bit too one dimensional and distasteful but the main problem with the film is that it is a bit incomprehensible.

The fighting though, which is the point of a film like this after all, is top notch. 

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

The Crime Doctor's Courage (1945)

Another entry in the Crime Doctor series, and one which has some quite abrupt changes in direction.

We start off with a quite possibly insane man on his honeymoon, when asked by his new wife if he did indeed - as people allege - kill his first wife, she falls to her death down the cliffs! A while later wife number 3 (Hillary Brooke) contacts Dr Ordway (Warren Baxter) asking for his help to see if her husband is murderously insane or just unlucky! At a dinner party the man is later found shot dead. There are a number of suspects, including a pair of suspected vampires!

This film lures you into one story direction then abruptly changes direction, the sub-plot about whether a pair of dancers are centuries old vampires or not is another fascinating, if bizarre, swerve. 

Despite the weirdness this is a solid crime B-movie, with a good locked room mystery at it's heart. The strange plot directions both make this film stand out from the usual fare though also distract from what is a pretty decent mystery.

Monday, October 7, 2024

Aenigma (1987)

A rather disturbing horror, though the victims tend to be pretty loathsome.

Kathy (Mijlijana Zirojevic), a nerdy outcast at an elitist school, is badly injured when a prank by school bullies goes wrong. Eva (Lara Lamberti) turns up at the school soon after and befriends the pupils who bullied Kathy. 

It turns out though that Eva is being controlled by Kathy who has somehow gained diabolical psychic powers while in a coma. Kathy begins her revenge on the bullies using Eva, in various terrible ways (including being smothered by snails)...

Taking place in a boarding school full of attractive young women, this film does have somewhat of an exploitative feel along with the brutal horror. The horror and camerawork is often very inventive. It could be utterly awful but somehow holds it together enough to be worthwhile.

Friday, October 4, 2024

Mysterious Intruder (1946)

A Noir entry in the Whistler anthology series.

Private detective Don Gale (Richard Dix) is employed by an old man (Paul E Burns) to find a young girl he once knew. The girl has an inheritance of two old recordings which are worth a lot of money. 

Although supposedly the good guy, Gale often flies close to the edge and he employs a woman to pretend to be the missing young girl so he can find out more about the inheritance. This is when the murders begin and Gale, despite his innocence, is suspect number 1 in the eyes of detectives Taggart (Barton MacLane) and Burns (Charles Lane)...

An enjoyable crime drama with a dark ending. A lot of plot is squeezed into a short running time and there are plenty of twists and swerves.

Thursday, October 3, 2024

Blood Bath (1966)

A rather off-beat vampire yarn, though makes little sense.

An artist (and obviously as this is movie-land he is a crazed and troubled artist) called Sordi (William Campbell) believes that he is the reincarnation of an ancestor who was killed for sorcery and vampirism. 

He kills young women and then disposes of their bodies in acid! His latest girlfriend Dorean (Lori Saunders) is definitely on the list...

This film makes little sense, though the fact it is made up of different films doesn't really help. It also looks pretty odd as the film mixes a Californian surf setting with somewhere suitably Gothic in Eastern Europe. It is also padded out with annoying beatnik characters and some odd dance and performance art scenes.

The film is certainly an... experience.