All posts by Louis Fowler

Come Play With Me (1977)

Though their teeth stereotypically may not be in all that great of condition, the sturdy women of the British sex comedy Come Play With Me are people who deserve our respect and admiration, mostly due to the fact they very rarely, if ever, wear clothes. I really admire that, guv’nor!

Although these ladies don’t show up until about 30 minutes in — a charming Mary Millington among them — as soon as they appear on-screen (and their clothes, of course, disappear!), it quickly becomes the sex comedy we’ve paid good money for, as they dance and sing in the nude while two old perverts dressed like Laurel and Hardy try to hide their blood-infused members.

At legendary 10 Downing Street, the prime minister (played by Benny Hill cast member Henry McGee!) and his cohorts argue about some stolen money. Across town, in a burlesque house, some guy argues about women while one dancing spreads fluffernutter on her nether regions. And then, down at a café, two guys argue about the price of coffee and pies.

None of that really matters, because when a rock ’n’ roll band stops at a local hotel, the horny women turn the place into a health club that seems to run, primarily, on juice and nudity; honestly, though, it’s a business I can get behind — and in front of — and would like a pamphlet, and not just for the fact Millington gives a horny gentleman a wholly painful yet fully erotic colonic.

Double-breasted with cameos from performers from the best British sex comedies of the era — movies and television shows, mind you — Come Play With Me is, honestly, mostly dumb, but filled with so many titillating moments of Her Majesty’s softcore sexuality that it’s easy to see why it played in London theaters to forlorn perverts for four royally arousing years. —Louis Fowler

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Shogun’s Joy of Torture (1968)

I’ve never been a shogun and, sadly, probably never will. Mostly because while I may enjoy tacos and dogs and movies, if this flick truly leads me to believe one thing, it’s that shoguns only really enjoy the cruelest of tortures, primarily through inflicting it on other people’s bare bodies. There goes another dream!

One of director Teruo Ishii’s infamous flicks of sex, violence and torture, often at the same time, this Toei production is a supposed anthology of the heinous practices documented on scrolls during the height of Tokugawa shogun. It features a catalog of barbarism that deftly mixes penile titillation with painful humiliation, seemingly a specialty of Ishii.

Focusing on three stories, Shogun’s Joy of Torture begins with a young woman and an illicit romance with her recently hurt brother and the scummy lawmen who jealously take their sexual issues out on her, with, of course, violent retribution.

The same goes for the second story, featuring the unbridled passions and unheralded smacks at a Buddhist nunnery. And the final story, which honestly wouldn’t seem out of place in an otherworldly Amicus production, depicts a tattoo artist who wants to get as close to death as utterly possible and achieves it with the help of a sadistic shogun.

Each tale is, as you’d probably imagine, beautifully — but brutally! — told, with excesses of ropes, whips, chains and other instruments of haughty pain throughout, used primarily on women hanging from the ceiling. While I’m sure a trigger warning is necessary for most viewers — I know I could’ve used two or three — this depiction of sex and sadism is a well-made movie that, I’m sure, will make someone’s penis suitably hard. —Louis Fowler

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Running Time (1997)

I remember reading a story about Running Time in the pages of Film Threat sometime in the late 1990s and was pretty pumped to see it, especially with Bruce Campbell in the lead role. But, like many things written about in the long-gone and lamented magazine, it never came out. Sadly, I then completely forgot about it, as one is wont to do.

I was surprised to recently receive it and even more floored to finally watch the one-shot heist film. While it understandably never received a wide theatrical release, it does kind of irk me I never saw it at least once on video back then, considering all the video stores where I worked.

Campbell is Carl, a smart aleck fresh out of prison and ready to rob its scheming laundry take. Teaming up with a trio of typical cinematic losers, everything goes wrong as you might expect, from the smack-addicted getaway driver not showing up to the scummy partner’s quick-trigger finger blowing away a security guard. But it’s the shock ending after the heist from hell that truly surprised me.

At the time it was (barely) released, I admit, I was caught up in the wave of Pulp Fiction and its assorted criminal rip-offs, so I probably wouldn’t have liked Running Time all that much, save for Campbell, of course. But looking at the film now some 20-plus years later, I feel genuine appreciation for what director Josh Becker set out to accomplish, at times even being a bit amazed by it.

Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, Becker creates a flowing single-take film that manages to subvert just about every heist stockpile out there. I’m surprised this structure has barely been attempted since. Of course, I say that and think about another Becker flick, Thou Shalt Not Kill … Except, and realized that’s been largely forgotten about as well.

They never steal from the good ones, do they? —Louis Fowler

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Burst City (1982)

I like the apocalypse and I love rock ’n’ roll, so the Japanese flick Burst City already has a lot going for it. Set in the decimated outskirts of Tokyo, here we find dystopian punkers fighting the dapper yakuza in a war of loud, noise-crunching guitars and repeating guns in a low-budget battle for … well, I’m not exactly sure — control of the nuclear power plant they live near, maybe?

Every night, sullen teens gather to hear the music of bands like The Stalin, The Roosters and so on, in a somewhat peaceful assembly of fans looking to tear shit up. When the yakuza comes around aiming to start trouble — as well as two Mad Max-like weirdos on a motorcycle — all hell breaks loose and something of a war is started, with the corrupt police coming in for a rip-’em-up finale.

Listed as a landmark in “cyberpunk cinema,” Burst City has not much of anything “cyber,” but there’s plenty of punk as these underground hooligans with soul-destroying glares whip chains and sling guitars in an epic showdown I imagine Japan, at the time, was craving.

Burst City is the cinematic debut from the director of the enjoyably insane Electric Dragon 80.000 V, Sogo Ishii, who kinetically manages to capture the manic aura the punk scene in Japan had at the time, with a setting far ahead of itself. It’s an unique stroke of filmmaking mishmash that America would try to copy with numerous films in the 1980s, none of them very good. —Louis Fowler

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Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes (2021)

When you ask the many fans of The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years what their favorite scene is, they’ll probably say those involving an absolutely drunk Chris Holmes, the guitarist for W.A.S.P., nearly drowning in a pool as his mother sits on the edge leering. It is for me.

While I thought he died shortly after that glimpse of living the high life, but turns out he’s alive and kicking around in Europe, where he’s something of a draw with his new band. So that’s a relief, I guess.

In the documentary Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes, we learn that W.A.S.P. lead singer Blackie Lawless was an idiotic showman who had no real respect for Holmes; to be fair, almost every night Holmes would get blackout-drunk, culminating in losing his house and sleeping on the couch of his fellow rock buddies, as you’d expect.

Still, even after a couple of new bands and a W.A.S.P. reunion, he needed to express himself “artistically,” culminating in this new tour. From traveling to gigs, playing onstage and recording a new album I’ll never listen to, there are so many moments of inspired comedy, this almost becomes a true-life Spinal Tap.

While there seems to be a lot that doesn’t work for Holmes musically, I’m surprised how much actually does in his own life, at least what the camera shows us. He has a loving and understanding wife; he’s genuinely nice to his fans; and he seems, at least in his head, poised for something of a comeback.

If you can take the corrupt past of Holmes and genuinely separate it into this recent life, Mean Man becomes something of a rock ’n’ roll survivor story. That being said, I’m still not listening to any of his music, but I’m glad he’s still here and still pushing the envelope. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.