Can you guess what movie or TV show we’re watching? We’ve turned on subtitles (when available) not to give you a clue, but to enhance that WTF effect! Leave your best guess in the comments to prove your true Flick Attackosity!
All posts by Rod Lott
Perversion Story (1969)
Dr. George Dumurrier (Jean Sorel, Belle du Jour) puts his San Francisco clinic and publicity tricks over everything, from his credibility to his homely, heavily asthmatic wife, Susan (Marisa Mell, Danger: Diabolik). While Dr. G is off administering, ahem, gynecological treatment to nude photographer Jane (Elsa Martinelli, Hatari!), he receives news of Susan’s death. Although she hated her hubbie, Susan leaves him with a surprise $2 million insurance policy, which would fix the clinic’s financial problems, except it sure looks fishy to the authorities.
At a topless club with a built-in ceiling swing, one performer/prostitute Monica Weston (also Mell) proves a dead ringer for Susan, but with blonde hair, green eyes and healthier lungs. Mell stuns as unbelievably, lip-biting sexy in this role; during their first lovemaking session, she has to unclamp George’s hand from her breast and force his digits southward.
But just what is going on? Can George figure it out before the cops find enough evidence to put him behind bars and possibly on death row? And since this thing is titled Perversion Story — and comes from ’69, haw-haw — how much nudity can we expect? Enough, my horny readers, as the flesh of the movie’s ladies are as curvy and on display as San Francisco’s famously steep and winding roads, but this is no porno.
The aforementioned coupling between George and Jane is shot ingeniously from the mattress’ POV, with flesh pressed right up against the screen. But Perversion Story has much more on its mind than mere pumping and pulchritude — writer/director Lucio Fulci has cooked up a corker of a plot at the film’s chewy center, even more complex than the thriller genre generally demands. It proves the man could do much more than gross us out, and that it’s a shame he didn’t do it more often. —Rod Lott
Fangoria Blood Drive (2004)
Hosted by Rob Zombie (if appearing on the DVD menu counts), Fangoria Blood Drive presents an hour’s worth of horror shorts that represent the cream of the crop in a contest held by the splatter-movie magazine. Judging by the results, the deadline should have been extended, maybe by years.
In “The Hitch,” a man picks up a female hitchhiker during a rash of area killings. The comedic “A Man and His Finger” shows what happens when a guy accidentally chops off one of his digits, which sports a mind of its own. “Inside” focuses on a young woman who … well, hell, I’m still unsure — it’s that narratively challenged. “Shadows of the Dead” suggests the end of the world will be brought about by zombies, and those inspired by George Romero, predictably.
“Mister Eryams” follows a church-contracted investigator of ghosts, examining reports of apparitions in a woman’s home. A clinically depressed chain smoker experiences “Disturbances” in her home, including dolls that do harm. A chemical meant to combat the West Nile virus backfires in “Song of the Dead,” resulting in, yep, more Romero zombies, but also a truly terrible song belted out by a fresh victim.
And not a single segment is worth watching. This is amateur-hour (literally) stuff, less concerned with storytelling than pulling off a gross-out special effect. The occasional good idea is hampered by botched execution, and while some may chalk that up to budgetary restraints, I blame a deficiency of creativity. An argument against DIY filmmaking, these works are the worst. —Rod Lott
The Italian Connection (1972)
Smiling Henry Silva and frowning Woody Strode are set up to comprise the Murtaugh and Riggs of Fernando Di Leo’s The Italian Connection, two American hit men dispatched from New York to Milan to ice a pimp named Luca Canali (Mario Adorf, The Tin Drum) for having $6 million worth of heroin stolen from the mob. But these Yanks are hardly in the picture.
The true focus is Luca, whose hobbies appear to be cheating on his wife, greasing his hair and head-butting both people and inanimate objects — he’s not choosy. Although guilty of many things, he’s actually innocent of the crime for which Team Silva/Strode has been summoned, but hey, it allows Strode to push over an automobile like he’s the Incredible Hulk.
Violent, exciting and flush with oversized lapels, The Italian Connection has just about everything you could want from a Eurocrime effort: a swanky instrumental theme, topless go-go dancing, full-frontal whores, lots of face-slapping and cheek-pinching, a limping auto repairman, a junkyard explosion, one gratuitous blue Afro wig and one dead kitty cat. (As gruesome as that sounds, it proves Di Leo does not pussyfoot around.
He proves himself aptly hard-boiled with a sawmill scuffle, then outdoes himself later in the film’s high point: an absolutely dynamic car chase sequence that vies for the all-time best. So high are its stakes that it briefly becomes a foot chase before getting back to wheels, but only with one car. That’s because the pursuer is hanging on to the driver’s-side door. This flick plays for keeps, and keep it, you’ll want to. —Rod Lott
6 Notes I Found for a Review of Code of Silence That Never Got Written
1. Dennis Farina and Chuck Norris going undercover as garbage men
2. chase atop a moving elevated train
3. two guys try to stick up a bar full of cops
4. a female police robot named the Prowler
5. someone getting thrown over a boat
6. sax-and-synth ’80s music —Rod Lott