If you weren’t alive and aware of your surroundings in the late 1970s, you can’t comprehend the level of popularity and pervasiveness the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen gripped on our culture. It’d be impressive for anyone, but it’s extraordinary for a dude who’d spent the previous 3,000 years as a pile of dust. 

Among the cashing-inners: NBC, broadcasting The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, a horror-tinged, mystery-minded work of fiction somehow based on Barry Wynne nonfiction book. A dapper Robin Ellis (TV’s original Poldark) headlines the made-for-telly movie as real-life tomb raider Howard Carter, whose bowtie looms larger than the bottom half of his face. Carter endears himself at the start by asking a local boy his name and, apparently not liking all the consonants and weird accents, tells the kid dismissively, “I’ll just call you ‘Fishbait.’”

In the sands of Egypt, archeologist Carter and his crew unearth an artifact that warns of death for anyone who dares disturb the king’s sleep. Near immediately, “accidents” befall others: a scorpion attack, a snakebite, an earthquake, the snapping of a biddy’s parasol in two! Say, how do you expect that biplane with a skull-and-crossbones decal will fare? 

The “mystery” at play is whether is the harm — fatal or not — is proof of a true supernatural curse or the work of a corrupt dealer played by Raymond Burr (Godzilla 1985) in brownface and various color sashes. Only everybody watching knows for sure! 

Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest) is on hand to lend Oscar-minted credibility to the project, but her role as Carter’s love interest is thankless. Somehow they also recruited the venerated Paul Scofield (Quiz Show) to deliver narration, which only adds to — rather than offsets — the telepic’s old-fashioned fussiness. —Rod Lott

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Although Rampo Edogawa, Japan’s answer to Edgar Allan Poe, had seen his material adapted for the screen dozens of times in his life, he died just a few years before the Golden Age kicked off. We’re talking Blind Beast, Horrors of Malformed Men and, coming first, Black Lizard, all within a year and a half. Talk about a trifecta!

One of the legendary Seven Samurai, Isao Kimura headlines this crazy crime tale as Akechi, a private detective with a lot going on. While investigating the disappearance of a corpse from a med school lab, he’s hired by the jeweler Iwasa (Jun Usami, The Vampire Doll) to protect his daughter, Sanae (Kikko Matsuoka, The Living Skeleton), at the secret go-go club where she works.

As Akechi is told, Iwasa’s been warned Sanae will be kidnapped by the mysterious Black Lizard, perhaps to get at his invaluable Star of Egypt diamond. A chloroformed rag or two later, Akechi fails his duties. Unknown to our dick, but not to our minds, is the Black Lizard’s true identity: the woman who runs the club.

Given the Black Lizard’s hunchbacked henchman, a snake-throwing henchwoman and a Sax Rohmer-ready hideout, it’s not like the movie lacks in audience appeal. But here’s where things get really interesting, because she was really a he — Akihiro Miwa, arguably Japan’s most celebrated drag queen.

For today’s viewers (who may recognize Miwa’s voice as Princess Mononoke’s Wolf Goddess), the actor’s true gender is no secret; it’s obvious as soon as his female character appears. Yet the more the Black Lizard is set up not only as Akechi’s foil, but as his potential paramour, the more I kept anticipating a proto-Crying Game reveal. To the progressive credit of director Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale), it never arrives!

Equal parts cigarette smoke and champagne effervescence, and buoyed by a score by Isao Tomita — yes, that Tomita! — Black Lizard is a real Pop Art blast from the Far East. Both informed by and showing up American pulp fiction, Fukasaku’s confection has style to burn and then some. —Rod Lott

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Drawing proportionate influence from the Italian giallo and the American Batman TV series of ’68, Sexy Cat is a Spanish murder mystery. And it’s loco.

The “beautiful mass murderess” Sexy Cat is set to leap from the comics to the small screen. Pissed his creator’s credit has been stolen by Bob Kane Paul Karpis (Beni Deus, Santo vs. Doctor Death), gin-soaked illustrator Graham (Fabián Conde, Murder in a Blue World) hires two-bit P.I. Mike Cash (Gérman Cobos, Desperate Mission) to help protect his copyright claim.

Graham should’ve hired a bodyguard instead, because he gets a knife blade dragged across his neck after Cash leaves. It’s just the first of many homicidal acts committed by someone dressed as the supervillain Sexy Cat. (Party mask and all, Sexy Cat looks a lot like the Marvel character Black Cat, then six years away from debuting in The Amazing Spider-Man’s pages). Other production-involved victims of Sexy Cat meet their doom via snake bite, plastic-bag asphyxiation and — finally! — razor-sharp kitty claws.

Considering the ultimate spice level of the content, the movie’s title is a tease (but, in hindsight, a no-brainer for Julio Pérez Tabernero, the eventual director of Hot Panties). Nonetheless, Sexy Cat is almost as much fun to watch as it is to say. Although the film isn’t much of a mystery — Sexy Cat’s true identity is easy to surmise, with time to spare — Tabernero gives his shaggy story an edge with such visual touches as a POV shot from inside the aforementioned Ziploc bag.

Also aiding in AV appeal: actresses Lone Fleming (Vampus Horror Tales) and Gloria Osuna (A Few Dollars for Django), Pop Art comics-style credits and a properly fizzy Carmelo Bernaola score. —Rod Lott

In a small Michigan town known for faith, family and farming (probably in that order), a local reverend is found drowned in his church’s baptismal pool. Insurance investigator Leo Hobbins (Bill Sage, 2021’s Wrong Turn) drives in from Detroit to determine whether the death was an accident or a suicide. The late rev’s right-hand woman, Darlene (Ismenia Mendes, 2019’s Lost Holiday), attempts to convince Leo of Option C: murder. She’s also the policy’s primary beneficiary — freshly added, at that. 

As unassuming a film as the cozy, close-knit town in which it unfolds, Hayseed marks an exceptionally assured first feature from writer/director Travis Burgess. Although every resident exhibiting a quirk isn’t exactly innovative, his film is an arch, wry comedic whodunit, aiming more for smile-all-the-time than laugh-out-loud, and succeeding.

With Leo, Burgess has gifted Sage the leading role that’s eluded him since his Hal Hartley heyday in the indie-friendly ’90s. The deeper the evidence takes the former cop, the more his gruff peevishness melts drop by drop into something the everybody-knows-everybody populace recognizes as human empathy. (Not so much that Leo wants to stick around after case-closing to solve more crimes alongside Darlene … but if he did, I’d watch that TV series.) Sage is utterly charming in the part, giving the movie its heart and its ulcer. Imagine Robert Redford as Fletch, if your mind allows such a flight of fancy. 

Best exemplified in recent years by Rian Johnson’s Knives Out pair of films, this style of mystery thrives on support from a talented pool of suspects. Here, that ensemble includes Kathryn Morris (Minority Report) delightfully playing against type as a flirty waitress, Jack Falahee (TV’s How to Get Away with Murder) as a recovering addict who’s renamed himself Duck, and Blue Ruin sibling Amy Hargreaves. Their individual work adds color to a plot that’s not hard to solve, but a blast to watch unfold — and hear, thanks to Xander Naylor’s Farfisa organ-fueled groove of a score. 

Other than another tightening of the wrench, Burgess could do precious little to improve Hayseed without potentially upsetting the recipe that baked such an out-of-nowhere winner. With pleasant surprises so hard to come by these days, don’t let this one go unnoticed. —Rod Lott

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Like David Fincher’s Zodiac, Jeremy Hoenack‘s Killer’s Delight draws from case files and follows San Francisco police detectives in search of a real-life serial killer. Here, the maniac in question — based shoelace-loosely on Ted Bundy — clearly has a type: beautiful teenage girls hitchhiking home from bowling alleys and public pools. After use and abuse, he dumps their nude bodies like trash; a freeze frame of one victim in free fall serves as the title card’s backdrop.

As lead investigator Sgt. De Carlo, James Luisi (1980’s Fade to Black) makes for a reasonable John Saxon substitute, especially with the easy rapport he shares with his partner on the force (Martin Speer, Exo Man). Once they suss out the ID of the murderer (John Karlen, Daughters of Darkness), the guys set a trap involving a radiant psychiatric doctor (Susan Sullivan, Cave In!) specializing in the criminal mind. Said trap requires her to go undercover as a nightclub singer, which works, by gum — both for the characters and for us, the viewers.

The lone directorial credit for Emmy-winning sound editor Hoenack, Killer’s Delight looks, sounds and acts like a made-for-TV movie, full-frontal nudity excepted. As the story unfolds, however, you’ll find yourself surrendering to its mighty grip. It’s top-shelf El Lay pulp — comfort-food viewing for the armchair detective.

Also released as The Sport Killer and The Dark Ride, it’s a film ahead of its time. If made today, it’d be a Netflix miniseries stretched across eight or 10 episodes; I’m thankful it exists as is, shock ending included. Imperfect though it may be, I wouldn’t change a moment. —Rod Lott

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