Severin Films

Devoted to rescuing and releasing some of the most provocative films from around the world.
Original
King Of EuroSleaze Jess Franco (Bloody Moon, MacumbaSexual) takes on the ‘80s Cannibal genre and delivers a jungle sickie like no other! When a safari of sexy babes and violent boneheads ventures into native-crazed wilderness, Uncle Jess unleashes a deluge of relentless nudity, dubious anthropology and his own brand of cut-rate carnage. Ursula Fellner (Sadomania), Al Cliver (Zombie), Robert Foster (Cannibal Terror) and Gisela Hahn (Co...Read More
Original
The Ozploitation classic– and one of the most unique shockers of the ‘80s –returns like never before: Michael Murphy (MANHATTAN), Dan Shor (BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE) and Fiona Lewis (THE FURY) star in this grisly saga of bizarre experiments, butchered teens, New Zealand doubling for suburban Illinois, and a killer in a Tor Johnson mask. Dey Young (ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL), Marc McClure (SUPERMAN), Scott Brady (JOHNNY GUITAR)...Read More
Original
Three years before Peter Jackson’s BAD TASTE, a young New Zealand filmmaker sprayed international movie screens with brains, blood and bizarre body fluids for the first splatter movie in Kiwi history: Director David Blyth (WOUND, GHOST BRIDE) launched his genre career with this relentlessly graphic – and still-intense – story of mad doctors, nude teens, psychotic mutants, shotgun murders, power drill lobotomies, explosive action and p...Read More
Original
In 1970, cult director Jess Franco and screen legend Christopher Lee collaborated on what they promised would be the most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel ever filmed. From its remarkable performances – including Lee as the Count, Herbert Lom (MARK OF THE DEVIL) as Van Helsing, Soledad Miranda (VAMPYROS LESBOS) as Lucy, Maria Rohm (VENUS IN FURS) as Mina, and authentic madman Klaus Kinski as Renfield – to its lush locations ...Read More
Original
Shortly before completing the sequel to his classic ZOMBIE, the legendary Lucio Fulci became ill and left the Philippines-based production. But when director Bruno Mattei (SHOCKING DARK) and writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (TROLL 2) stepped in to finish, the result became the most “insanely enjoyable” (The Lucid Nightmare) zombie romp in EuroCult history: After a deadly virus is stolen from a government facility, it will unl...Read More
Original
It was one of the few true slasher movies to pre-date HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13th, and remains the closest you’ll ever come to an actual seedy ‘70s drive-in experience: It’s a hot summer night in Southern California and the local passion pit is packed with patrons. But when a sword-wielding psycho begins carving up customers, it’ll unspool a grubby cavalcade of creepy carnies, peeping perverts, graphic decapitations and an ending yo...Read More
Original
In between the celebrated insanities of ZOMBIE 3 and TROLL 2, director Claudio Fragasso (here under the name ‘Clyde Anderson’) and writer/collaborator Rossella Drudi put the penultimate batsh*t nail in the coffin of the legendary ZOMBIE series: When a white scientist’s cure for cancer enrages an island voodoo priest, it will unleash the ultimate plague of ninja zombies, exploding heads, appalling performances, eye-gouging, face-rippin...Read More
Original
Eight years after he first unleashed the Italian cannibal craze, spaghetti splatter master Umberto Lenzi (NIGHTMARE CITY, CANNIBAL FEROX) returned to the jungle for this “graphic” (Monster Hunter), “sordid” (Geek Legacy) and “extreme” (Horror News) gut-muncher that still packs the power to rip your d*ck off. EuroSleaze hall-of-famers Robert Kerman (CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST), Janet Agren (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD), Ivan Rassimov (THE MAN FROM...Read More
Original
It has been acclaimed as “visually amazing” (Videoscope), “deeply disturbing” (BBC Radio One), “a must-see for serious horror buffs” (Film Review), and compared to the works of Bergman, Bava and Argento. Now experience the modern Nunsploitation masterpiece from co-writer/director Mariano Baino as you’ve never seen or heard it before: When a young Englishwoman attempts to discover her mysterious connection to a remote island convent, s...Read More
Original
Even by the sleaziest standards of ‘80s EuroTrash, it remains a film that must be seen to be believed: When a pair of criminal knuckleheads and their busty moll kidnap the young daughter of a wealthy tycoon, they foolishly choose to hide in a local jungle infested with ferocious cannibals. What follows is a mind-roasting exercise in atrocious acting, gratuitous nudity and gut-munching mayhem by a ravenous tribe of flesh eaters who ine...Read More
Original
At the peak of his ‘80s excess, Italian sleaze maestro Bruno Mattei – using the alias ‘Stefan Oblowsky’ – stunned audiences with this Nunsploitation shocker about a series of brutal murders in a depraved convent. And while his cinematic legacy may remain controversial, Mattei here delivers a surprisingly stylized yet undeniably blasphemous orgy of stabbings, stigmata, Satanism, sexual violence and graphic savagery that ranks among his...Read More
Original
For director Bruno Mattei and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi, their final - and most notorious - collaboration went beyond brazen plagiarism to become a fearless act of deranged genius: In this bravura rip-off of both ALIENS and TERMINATOR, a team of badass marines, a tough female civilian and an orphaned girl battle monsters beneath the Venice canals while being chased by an indestructible killer cyborg. Stars Christoph...Read More
Original
In MONDO BIZARRO, filmmakers Lee Frost and Bob Cresse (HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN, THE SCAVENGERS) take their “hidden cameras” and go “beyond the beyond” to expose Bahamian voodoo rites, Japanese massage parlors, Nazi theater, and an Arab sex slave auction that looks suspiciously like LA.’s Bronson Canyon. Mondo fans will recognize the familiar format of titillation masquerading as education, but Cresse and Frost push the concept into dec...Read More
Original
At the close of the ‘70s, eminent auteur Jess Franco (SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY) revisited the works of Marquis de Sade to create what EuroSleaze historians have called one of the most sexually daring and boldly creative films of his entire career: When an unstable noblewoman (a fearless performance by Lina Romay) returns to her lavish estate, she will find herself – along with her libertine husband, his male lover, and a young nun with a...Read More
Original
In September 1984, it was aired on the BBC and shocked tens of millions of UK viewers. Four months later, it was broadcast in America on TBS and became the most watched basic cable program in history. After more than three decades, it remains one of the most acclaimed and shattering made-for-television movies of all time. Reece Dinsdale (Coronation Street), David Brierly (Doctor Who) and Karen Meagher (in a stunning debut performance)...Read More
Original
In 1963, nudie/roughie filmmakers Bob Cresse and Lee Frost (HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN, LOVE CAMP 7) saw the U.S. grosses of MONDO CANE and quickly imported and adapted one of the most provocative – and successful – shockumentaries of the decade. Narrated by Academy Award® winner George Sanders (ALL ABOUT EVE) and featuring a legendary soundtrack by Riz Ortolani (Oscar®-nominated for MONDO CANE’s ‘More’), ECCO explores a world of sadism, ...Read More
Original
In 1972, a team of New York City exploitation outlaws that included Ed Adlum, Ed Kelleher and Michael & Roberta Findlay – along with first-time assistant cameraman and future award-winning cinematographer Frederick Elmes (ERASERHEAD, BLUE VELVET) – descended on bucolic Westchester County with 8½ bottles of stage blood to make a movie about a Druid cult seeking to resurrect their dead queen. The budget was $24,000. The cast was paid ...Read More
Original
In perhaps his most rarely seen film, Godfather Of Gore Lucio Fulci takes on the erotic thriller genre and unleashes the ultimate onslaught of glossy depravity: Brett Halsey (DEMONIA, THE RETURN OF THE FLY), Corinne Cléry (THE STORY OF O, MOONRAKER) and Blanca Marsillach star in this insane S&M saga complete with sodomy, torture, torrid romance, rampant nudity and a jaw-dropping cavalcade of kink that Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio...Read More
Original
When a 747 crash lands in a Sydney suburb – a still-spectacular sequence that helped make this the most expensive Australian film of its time – the inferno kills everyone on board except the pilot (Robert Powell of JESUS OF NAZARETH and TOMMY) who emerges from the wreckage miraculously unscathed. But as a local psychic begins to communicate with the spirits of the doomed passengers, it will unlock a nightmare of madness, murder and s...Read More
Original
The original Ozploitation classic is back like you’ve never seen it before: Robert Thompson stars as a comatose killer seemingly unresponsive in a small private hospital. But when a hot new nurse (Susan Penhaligon of THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT) begins to question his condition, Patrick will unleash a waking nightmare of psychokinetic carnage. Sir Robert Helpmann co-stars in this international hit shocker produced by Antony I. Ginnane,...Read More
Original
The ‘Ozploitation’ classic –and one of the most unique vampire movies of our time –is back like you’ve never seen it before: David Hemmings and Henry Silva star as executives of an international blood-drinking cartel known as ‘The Brotherhood’. But when they abduct a descendant (Chantal Contouri of THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN) of Elizabeth Bathory to reboot her depraved legacy, she must escape before the corporation can expand their human...Read More
Original
In 1979, legendary writer/director Jess Franco (VAMPYROS LESBOS) re-purposed elements of his satanic sex shocker EXORCISM with all-new footage to create a depraved new epic that – even by Uncle Jess standards – achieves new levels of EuroSleaze insanity: Franco himself stars a defrocked priest turned hooker-slashing psychopath, prowling the streets of Paris in a fever of violence, voyeurism, rampant nudity and S&M depravity.
Original
It’s been hailed as “skin-crawlingly real” (Horror News), “a jaw-dropping achievement” (Moon In The Gutter) and “a giallo that rivals Argento’s DEEP RED” (Scary Minds), yet has remained largely unseen in America. Now experience “one of the greatest horror movies of the 20th Century” (Goomba Stomp) for the first time ever…and like never before: When a young woman inherits a creaky retirement home, she’ll find herself in a waking nightm...Read More
Original
Former Miss Bahamas Josephine Jacqueline Jones sparked an international firestorm with her debut starring role as Venus, the stunning ebony seductress whom no man –or woman –can possibly resist. But when Venus becomes the muse and lover of an impoverished young sculptor, she succumbs to a staggering odyssey of savage rape, Sapphic lust and extreme carnal degradation. In a Victorian society ruled by sexual repression and personal perve...Read More
Original
In 1977, infamous filth auteur Joe D’Amato combined the insane extremes of eroticism and cannibalism for the most groin-grinding, gut-munching, gore-spewing EuroSleaze saga of them all: When journalist Emanuelle (the ever-luscious Laura Gemser of BLACK EMANUELLE fame) discovers evidence of an extinct cannibal tribe in a Manhattan mental hospital, her investigation will take her to the Amazon jungle for an orgy of carnage that SexGoreM...Read More
Original
In 1966, the notorious producer/director/distributor team of Lee Frost and Bob Cresse combined the extremes of the Mondo genre with their own depraved aesthetic to create a shockumentary that put their company Olympic International on the map, changing the face of exploitation cinema forever. Cresse himself narrates MONDO FREUDO, “a world of sex and the strange & unusual laws that govern it” featuring Hollywood strippers, Tijuana hook...Read More
Original
In a totalitarian near future, defiant citizens are labeled ‘deviants’ and sentenced to brutal ‘behavior modification’ camps. But when new prisoners Anders (Steve Railsback of THE STUNT MAN and HELTER SKELTER) and Walters (Olivia Hussey of ROMEO & JULIET and BLACK CHRISTMAS) are chosen as human prey for rich people to hunt, they will be thrust into a nightmare of depravity, dismemberment, cleaved skulls, exploding heads, lesbians with...Read More
Original
His award-winning FX career spans both grindhouse (Brain Damage, Frankenhooker,) and art-house (Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle). Now writer/producer/director Gabe Bartalos brings his own years-in-the-making vision to the screen, as an unhinged orchestra conductor named Bernard graphically descends into a surreal odyssey of chaos, psychosis and "f*cked-up sh*t that looks cool as hell" (Bloody-Disgusting.com). Warwick Davis and notor...Read More
Original
The legendary Barbara Steele (Black Sunday) delivered two of her most memorable performances in this tale of obsession, madness and depravity. Steele stars as a cheating wife who is chained, whipped and tortured to death by her sadistic scientist husband, and as her unstable blonde stepsister whose fate may be even more ghastly. Paul Muller (Vampyros Lesbos), Helga Line (Horror Express) and Rik Battaglia co-star in this twisted shocke...Read More
Original
More than 30 years later, it remains one of the most ambitious, sought-after and totally bizarre low-budget Canadian features of all: Yugoslavian-born actor Lazar Rockwood in a debut performance Canuxploitation.com calls "creepy, astonishingly uncharismatic, and displaying a complete disregard for the craft of acting" is Boris, an ex-con and career thief who convinces his ex-girlfriend (Bonnie Beck) to help him rob her wealthy boss' c...Read More
Original
As the ‘body-count’ genre stabbed its way into audiences’ hearts in the early ‘80s, EuroTrash auteur Jess Franco (Sadomania, Mansion Of The Living Dead) was asked to create his own saga of slaughtered schoolgirls complete with gratuitous nudity, graphic violence, and gory set pieces. But just when you thought you’d seen it all, Franco shocked the world by delivering surprising style, genuine suspense and a cavalcade of depravity that ...Read More
Original
In 1997, writer/director/special effects master Olaf Ittenbach changed the face of video horror, force-fed its ripped-out eyeballs to screaming audiences, then used a drill, machete and shotgun on its still-twitching torso: Ittenbach himself stars as a degenerate junkie who babysits his young sister with two bedtime stories of the damned. First, an escaped serial killer turns date night into a graphic family massacre. Then a country p...Read More
Original
Diabolical. Seductive. Immortal. Vampires have been an icon of evil in folklore and popular culture for more than three centuries, yet only one name still personifies the ultimate aristocrat of bloodlust. Now join the world’s foremost experts on Dracula – including academics, authors and horror historians – as they explore the untold story of the Transylvanian Count, from the legend of Vlad The Impaler and Bram Stoker’s celebrated nov...Read More
Original
It was seized by UK authorities as a ‘Video Nasty’ and accused of being an actual snuff film. Yet even by ‘80s Italian gore-spewing standards, this grueling shocker from sex & sleaze maestro Joe D’Amato (BEYOND THE DARKNESS) still stands as perhaps the most controversial – and extreme – spaghetti splatter epic of them all. Tisa Farrow (ZOMBIE), Zora Kerova (CANNIBAL FEROX) and co-writer/producer George Eastman (STAGE FRIGHT, 1990: BRO...Read More
Original
Joe D’Amato's infamous follow-up to ANTHROPOPHAGOUS like never before! D'Amato unleashes gut-spewing Greek boogeyman (screenwriter George Eastman) into suburban America for a "gruesome as hell" (CinemasFringes.com) and "incredibly sadistic" (ASlashAbove.com) saga of doomed nurses, butchered babysitters, bio-chemical clergy and some of the most insane splatter scenes in Italian gorehound history. Edmund Purdom (FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF...Read More
Original
In 1994, a production team in Eastern Pennsylvania brought together a group of local pro wrestlers and young actors to make a horror-action film. A quarter of a century later, the movie was finally finished: After accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, a professional wrestler takes a job at a group home for youth offenders. But when a psychopath wearing a wrestling mask begins butchering the teenage residents, their rehabilitat...Read More
Original
A year before their jaw-dropper SHOCKING DARK, director Bruno Mattei and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi first collaborated on this brain-melting mash-up of PREDATOR, ROBOCOP and Philippines war movie mayhem. When a team of badass commandos is hired for a jungle rescue mission, they’ll instead find them hunted by a kill-crazed creature that is part man, part machine and all glorious ‘80s ItaloSleaze.
Original
If you were a child in the '80s, you were likely traumatized for life by repeated viewings of this on cable or VHS. If you've never seen it, nothing can prepare you for the damage that awaits your psyche: For our premiere release, Severin Kids presents the "notoriously strange and creepy" (BeatRoute.ca) Canadian kiddie feature about burning winos, sudden baldness, psychotic teachers, suburban abductions, juvenile sweatshops and the ic...Read More
Original
More than a decade after the Spielberg blockbuster, a dream team of shock maestros - including producer-turned-director Fabrizio De Angelis, screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti , gore guru Giannetto De Rossi and Oscar®-nominated composer Riz Ortolani - created one of the most ridiculously entertaining JAWS rip-offs in ItaloSleaze history: When a humongous crocodile begins chomping on a tropical island community, a group of idealistic youn...Read More
Original
The Caribbean swamps, which is to be made into a holiday resort, is terrorized again by a second monstrous crocodile which is killing off anyone unfortunate to be on the water.
Original
Uncut & remastered in 4k for the first time ever in America! It's been called "a rip-roaring riot of Italian exploitation" (DVD Beaver), "a weird cross between ROMANCING THE STONE and CANNIBAL FEROX" (The Video Graveyard) and "pretty damn entertaining, possibly even brilliant" (Blu-Ray.com). Now experience the wildest '80s cannibal movie you've never seen scanned uncut in 4k from the original negative. Michael Sopkiw (BLASTFIGHTER,...Read More
Original
In 1989, it became the first Canadian shot-on-Super 8 gore shocker commercially released on VHS. Today, it remains perhaps the most bizarre, depraved and mind-boggling chunk of 'Canuxploitaion' ever unleashed upon humanity. Adult film superstar Amber Lynn and co-writer/producer Barry J. Gillis star in this surreal saga about two friends who visit a remote cabin, only to discover a womb of monstrous horror that demands graphic dismembe...Read More
Original
In what fans consider his last great film, Godfather of Gore Lucio Fulci returns to the startling imagery and bloody excesses of his '70s/'80s classics for an unholy saga of demonic nuns and supernatural carnage: When a Canadian archeological team begins excavating the ruins of a medieval Sicilian monastery, they will unleash the vengeance of a crucified coven of satanic sisters with full-on Fulci fury. Brett Halsey (THE DEVIL'S HONEY...Read More
Original
What was intended to be an unofficial sequel to Werner Herzog's NOSFERATU instead became one of the most notoriously fascinating productions in EuroCult history: Klaus Kinski - "now fully in the grip of the 'batsh*t crazy' phase of his career" (Rock! Shock! Pop!) - gives his penultimate performance as the legendary vampire resurrected in modern-day Venice with an insatiable hunger for warm blood and rough sex. Donald Pleasence and Aca...Read More
Original
This long-unseen chum bucket from producer/director/EuroSleaze master Joe D'Amato was shot on location in Florida surf and Rome swimming pools. D'Amato combines '80s teen movie cliches and mysticism with stupefying dialogue, over-the-top performances and shark footage in this timely new arrival from our friends at Severin! A cast of local unknowns – along with, inexplicably, the ‘60s comedy team of Charlie Brill & Mitzi McCall – st...Read More
Original
When an all-girl rock band records an unpublished song by Niccolò Paganini – the 19th Century composer said to have sold his soul to the Devil – they will unleash a skintight spandex nightmare of extreme violins, cheesy power ballads, SUSPIRIA-influenced lighting and outlandish Satanic havoc that QuietCool calls “serious fun…it drips with as much love as it does with blood and gore.”
Original
It has been hailed as "extraordinary" (The Guardian), "visionary and haunting" (Rolling Stone) and "a grand work of art, full of symbols and imagery that reach beyond language to something primal and original" (AV Club). Now forget everything you have ever seen as the modern masterpiece from director Alejandro Jodorowsky returns like never before. It is unlike any film you have ever experienced...or ever will. Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca ...Read More
Original
Director Bruno Mattei and screenwriters Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi return to the Philippine jungles with a higher budget, bigger action and Richard Harris (yes, that Richard Harris) for a crowd-pleaser that shamelessly borrows from APOCALYPSE NOW, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, RAMBO and beyond. This time, Sgt Mike Ransom (Brent Huff of GWENDOLINE fame) battles the KGB, rogue CIA agents, an army of ninjas, a tough bar owner (Miss Wor...Read More
Original
Two years before the deranged genius of Robowar and Shocking Dark, writer/director Bruno Mattei and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi borrowed from RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, MISSING IN ACTION and more to create their own mind-blowing 'Namsploitation' film: Reb Brown (UNCOMMON VALOR) stars as Sgt. Mike Ransom, a one-man war machine on a screaming-for-vengeance mission against brutal Vietcong, merciless Russians, double-cro...Read More
Original
This first-ever restoration of the depraved Canadian shocker is being hailed as the genre re-discovery of the year: In 1947, a young girl is roasted alive in a car accident. Thirty years later, her grown brother returns to their childhood home with his mentally unstable wife and sweet daughter Cathy. But when the dead aunt's vengeful spirit possesses the child, it will unleash an unnerving nightmare of creepy mediums, demonic dolls, a...Read More
Original
His mind-blowing work as an FX artist has included everything from Frank Henenlotter’s BRAIN DAMAGE and FRANKENHOOKER to Matthew Barney’s CREMASTER CYCLE. And for his 2004 debut as writer/producer/director, Gabe Bartalos created this “demented gift from the B-Movie Gods” (Bloody Good Horror) about a rural clan of psychotic freaks, the killing spree “that takes us places and shows us things we’ve never seen before” (Dread Central) and ...Read More
Original
THE FIRST-EVER AUTHORIZED AMERICAN RELEASE In the final film of her Italian Gothic period, the legendary Barbara Steele (BLACK SUNDAY) stars in one of the most startling erotic shockers of her entire career: When a cursed statue is recovered from a villa's lake, a young heiress (Steele) will inflict a torrent of depraved seduction and homicidal madness on the local village. Anthony Steffen (THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE), Cla...Read More
Original
For his own entry in the '80s Italian Post-Nuke cycle, Joe D'Amato combines a prescient script, ferocious action and an unprecedented cast of ItaloCult icons to create "one of the better Spaghetti Sci-Fi films of the decade" (Rivets On The Poster): In a radiation-ravaged future, an underground society of mutant rebels will attempt to overthrow the tyrannical government by infiltrating the TV sport in which humans are hunted as prey. A...Read More
Original
For his 1987 feature film debut, co-writer/director Guy Magar delivered what Bleeding Skull hails as "relentless, squishy joy that makes us angry we've lived this long without having seen it": On the seedy side of Hollywood, an emotionally fragile painter miraculously survives a horrific suicide attempt. But when a series of grisly murders rocks the city, he discovers he may be possessed by the vengeful spirit of a murdered local hood...Read More
Original
During one of the most insanely productive periods of his career, writer/director Jess Franco resurrected the character of seedy private eye Al Pereira -- portrayed here by key collaborator Antonio Mayans -- for this 1983 Golden Films Internacional hard-boiled erotic thriller: When down-on-his-luck Pereira is hired by a sultry client (blonde wigged Lina Romay under her pseudonym 'Candy Coster') for a fast-buck job, he'll find himself ...Read More
Original
Based loosely on Milovan Glišić's classic 1880 Serbian vampire story After Ninety Years - which preceded Bram Stoker's Dracula by nearly two decades - Djordje Kadijevic's adaptation is a subversive, darkly erotic take on Glišić's pastoral tale of a group of rural villagers beset upon by the infamous vampire Sava Savanovic, who has taken up residence in their local flour mill. Killing off all the millers in succession leaves an opening...Read More
Original
Jess Franco's long-unseen film noir is a hard-boiled tale of betrayal, violence and revenge featuring smoky jazz compositions by Franco himself. Following his international breakthrough with The Awful Dr. Orloff, director Jess Franco delivered a startling crime thriller that pistol-whipped European notions of film noir while lighting the fuse on Uncle Jess' own insane aesthetic. Set in New Orleans and based on a novel by the authors o...Read More
Original
A TV station employee takes a camera crew out to an abandoned factory to investigate a purported snuff film that was made there, only to end up running for her life. Nami hosts a late night home video program. She receives a tape which appears to be a real snuff film. She and her crew investigate the location where she meets a man looking for his brother who warns her to stay away. As she gets closer to the truth, she and her friends ...Read More
Original
Rififi In The City is a nihilistic trip through a pulp underworld of thugs, snitches, nightclub dames and black-gloved giallo-style murders. Following his international breakthrough with The Awful Dr. Orloff, director Jess Franco delivered a startling crime thriller that pistol-whipped European notions of film noir while lighting the fuse on Uncle Jess' own insane aesthetic.
Original
For his feature film debut, director Peter Maris (Diplomatic Immunity) took portions of an unfinished urban conspiracy thriller and added a new psycho-killer procedural to create what may be the most unusual/vicious proto-slasher shocker of the '70s: When a series of savage murders rocks St. Louis, the police investigation will lead to a deranged Vietnam vet, an underground organization of white-collar vigilantes, gratuitous nudity, g...Read More
Original
When the crew of a saucy photoshoot breaks into an abandoned castle, they will unleash the madness of the male-body-obsessed owner (muscleman Mickey Hargitay in the WTF? performance of his career) who is possessed by the vengeful spirit of a 16th century torturer. Walter Brandi (The Playgirls And The Vampire) and Femi Benussi co-star in this hair-raising orgy of sadism – also known as The Crimson Executioner – from director Massimo Pu...Read More
Original
Amid the gush of early ‘80s low-budget backwoods horror, only one lost classic brought together softcore sex, hardcore violence, Satanic sex cults and a limb-tearing, gut-slinging, beast. When a group of Anthropology students heads deep into the forest to investigate a series of Sasquatch attacks, they’ll discover an immortal brain-blast of crazy hermits, mutilated Girl Scouts, interspecies copulation and “one of the goriest final sce...Read More
Original
Alan Arkin and horror/fantasy icon Christopher Lee star in the long-unseen 1982 action-comedy from the director of The Beast Within and Howling II, with songs by Richard O'Brien (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), and co-written by the screenwriter of Die Hard and 48 Hours. When archcriminal Mr. Midnight (Lee) plots to take over the world, the world’s only hope is World War II’s formerly indestructible ‘Legend In Leotards’ (Arkin) who is...Read More
Original
From Earl Owensby Studios - the South's biggest producer/distributor of '70s/'80s regional horror and exploitation hits - comes what may be the most obscure and bizarre slasher movie of the entire godless genre: In a 1930s small town rife with lust, corruption and sin, a mysterious figure wielding a scythe arrives to cut an unholy swath of murder, madness and moralizing that may lead straight to Hell. William T. Hicks (DEATH SCREAMS),...Read More
Original
In his 1964 'monster musical,' a carnival gypsy turns sleaze auteur Ray Dennis Steckler into a homicidal maniac. Jaw-dropping singing/dancing ensues. In what The New York Times hailed as "his magnum opus," infamous indie auteur Ray Dennis Steckler (WILD GUITAR, THE THRILL-KILLERS) created what was billed as 'The First Monster Musical.' More than half a century later, it still must be seen to be believed: Producer/director Steckler ...Read More
Original
Five years before MAD MAX, producer/director/co-writer/star Sandy Harbutt - in his first and only feature film - ignited Australia's exploitation explosion, launched a global censorship battle and delivered what may still be the best biker movie in history. When an undercover cop (Ken Shorter of SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY) infiltrates an outlaw motorcycle gang (led by Harbutt), he'll straddle 7000 RPM of screaming steel for a full-throttle h...Read More
Original
For his final horror hit of the '80s, writer/director Lucio Fulci combined elements of CARRIE, PHENOMENA and SUSPIRIA with the grisly surrealism of his own past classics for one last shocker packed with "brooding, ominous imagery and signature Fulci style" (The Horror Syndicate): When a bullied student at a New England girls school becomes comatose after a prank gone wrong, her tormenters will suffer graphic telepathic punishment that...Read More
Original
In 1985, director Javier Elorrieta fused the brutal realism of the Quinqui genre ("delinquent movies") with American-style rural revenge to create one of Spain’s most significant shockers of the decade: When a troubled city doctor (singer/songwriter Patxi Andión) relocates to a remote village, he’ll discover that a horrific tragedy in the town’s past is commemorated by hunting teen addicts as human prey.
Original
For their penultimate collaboration, Umberto Lenzi and producer Luciano Martino (Eaten Alive!) brought together Tomas Milian as a cold-blooded crime boss known as ‘The Chinaman,’ John Saxon as a sadistic American mobster looking for his own piece of the action and Maurizio Merli as hot-headed rogue cop Leo Tanzi gunning for them both. Renzo Palmer and Gabriella Lepori co-star in this “fantastic piece of Italian genre cinema and a defi...Read More
Original
For their final collaboration, Umberto Lenzi directs his own razor-sharp screenplay while Tomas Milian delivers a brilliant dual performance reprising the roles of scheming lowlife Sergio 'Er Monnezza' Marazzi from FREE HAND FOR A TOUGH COP as well as his twin brother, hunchbacked sociopath Vincenzo 'Il Gobbo' Marazzi from THE TOUGH ONES. With Milian providing his own characters' dialogue, it's a potent odyssey of trans prostitutes, a...Read More
Original
In their second collaboration - released in Italy as Il Giustiziere Sfida La Città (The Vigilante Challenges the City) - Tomas Milian stars as a biker named Rambo (the actor borrowed the name from David Morrell's 1972 novel First Blood) who avenges a friend's murder by orchestrating a war between rival crime families. Director Umberto Lenzi and screenwriter Vincenzo Mannino (House on the Edge of the Park) pack the running time with a ...Read More
Original
Released in Italy under the title Milano Odia: La Polizia Non-Può Sparare (Milan Hates: The Police Can’t Shoot, this first collaboration between director Umberto Lenzi and star Tomas Milian remains both "a degenerate treat" (Mondo Digital) and "definitive Eurocrime" (DVD Talk): When a small-time criminal (a fearless performance by Milian) kidnaps a wealthy industrialist's daughter, he'll trigger a depraved spree of class warfare, sexu...Read More
Original
In the final days of the Vietnam War, a squad of rogue U.S. soldiers begins slaughtering American officers. But when a tough Army investigator (Brent Huff of Strike Commando 2) and his partner (Max Laurel of Robowar) are assigned to the case, they’ll tear apart Manila-as-Saigon in a frenzy of machine guns, car chases, stock footage, an ear-worm theme song and some of the most brain-scorching miniatures in ‘80s Italian cinema. Directed...Read More