Tubby, beer-swilling Vietnam vet Kirk Smith (Nicholas Worth, Swamp Thing) eeks out a meager living shooting photos for two-bit wank rags. His real hobby, however, is breaking into the homes of L.A.’s bustiest single ladies. With pantyhose pulled tight over his melony noggin, he rips off their clothes, strangles them to death and laughs maniacally. Somewhere in between, he sexually assaults them — as one cop puts it, in “every orifice she’s got.”

Welcome to Don’t Answer the Phone! Now hang up.

It’s a Crown International cheapie whose misogyny is as strong as the men’s ties are wide. While the title suggests something along the telephonic lines of When a Stranger Calls or Black Christmas, the only film of director Robert Hammer — blunt, to say the least — is nothing like those taut works and then taunting of victims made possible by Alexander Graham Bell. Kirk’s phone use is limited to affecting a comically over-the-top Mexican accent and the pseudonym of Ramon to call into a live radio show hosted by abnormal psychology expert Dr. Gale (Flo Gerrish, Schizoid).

Like the notorious The Toolbox Murders, the focus shifts about halfway through from instigator to investigator. Sniffing out Kirk’s sweat- and sperm-strewn trail are Lt. McCabe (James Westmoreland, The Undertaker and His Pals) and Sgt. Hatcher (Ben Frank, Death Wish II), whose unannounced visit to a massage parlor results in an out-of-place sequence of “wacky” comedy.

Although Worth makes Kirk more interesting in person than he is on the page, no sequence is worth watching, despite how many breasts it bares. Sleazy and repugnant, Don’t Answer the Phone! revels in its own dreariness, growing to a point where it practically dares you to stay seated. It’s an ugly movie on several levels. Don’t. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

I couldn’t make heads or tails of Jess Franco’s Two Undercover Angels, but I know it’s a bright and bubbly comedic thriller that has something to do with two hot spies (Succubus co-stars Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni) who operate as The Red Lips. They’re great at detection, interior design, sensual massage and lusting for Paul Newman.

The story, so to speak, involves murdered models and white trafficking, but don’t let that get you down! It’s dealt with by way of a basement art gallery of erotic multimedia works by pop artist Ernst Thiller, whose assistant is a werewolf, just because.

Alternately titled Sadist Erotica, this lively mess of a movie offers such incomprehensible delights as a woman running for her life while wearing bridal lingerie, an eyepatched assassin, a female art thief in head-to-toe black, death by blowdart, and lots of go-go dancing.

Taking itself with not one iota of seriousness, the zippy heap of Eurotrash includes a few meta touches like a naked woman refusing to get out from underneath the sheets until the camera zooms in to the point that her chest will be out of frame. Two Undercover Angels is more about enjoying the party vibe than trying to absorb all the convo, and The Red Lips were back that same year to smooch some more in Kiss Me, Monster. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Running second in a series of seven, the Japanese women-in-prison film known as Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 was way ahead of its time — and it still is!

The titular convict Scorpion (the largely mute Meiko Kaji, Lady Snowblood) — a nickname earned due to her gouging out the eye of the warden in this film’s predecessor, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion — is kept in an underground cell where she is habitually abused by guards. After a hard day of breaking rocks and getting raped, she manages an escape with her fellow convicts. They spend the rest of the film on the lam, and that’s about the extent of the plot.

But Jailhouse 41 turns wonderfully strange, oddly metaphorical and even supernatural, operating on its own brand of internal logic that’s indescribable.

Director Shunya Ito (who also helmed the series’ first installment and returned for its third, 1973’s even odder titled Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Beast Stable) does more interesting things with color and sound than you’d typically find in an exploitation film. At times, I wasn’t quite sure this qualified as an exploitation film at all, as it contains some truly beautiful images — the blood-soaked waterfall comes to mind, predating The Shining’s famous slow-motion elevator shot. But then you see things like a naked prison guard with a log through his crotch to set you straight. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

No sooner has thieving murderer Joe Breezi (Andy Warhol regular Joe Dallesandro) escaped from prison to sweet freedom than he kills a couple of farmers, stabbing one with the elderly guy’s own pitchfork. At least he has good reason: Joe needs their car to drive to the two-room countryside cottage in which he buried 300 million liras five years prior, underneath the fireplace.

Arriving at the cottage for the weekend are cad Sergio (Gianni Macchia, Inferno), his wife (Patrizia Behn) and her sister (Lorraine De Selle, Cannibal Ferox). Sergio’s cheating on the former with the much-hotter latter, Paola. When he goes out hunting and his wife heads into town to shop, that leaves Paola to sunbathe … and Joe to knock her out so he can start chipping away at the bricks.

Had he just waited a couple of days, Joe could have the place to himself — but then, we wouldn’t have a movie. And it’s an enjoyably sleazy movie. Clad in a wife-beater, blue jeans and white Keds, Joe rapes Paola when she comes to … and then professes to like it. De Selle spends a good half of the movie with nary a stitch; getting nearly as much screen time is John Travolta, via a poster above the couch.

Madness contains three additional sex scenes, with the first being the most explicit — surprisingly not involving gay icon Dallesandro. Let’s just say writer/director Fernando Di Leo (The Italian Connection) familiarizes the audience with Macchia and Behn’s taints. Don’t worry: Di Leo delivers his trademark violence, yet the weird thing is, you may find yourself rooting for Dallesandro and against his captives — not just because the actor has a palpable presence, but because the Italian-language film is written that way. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

When cast in the right role, which is rarely, Matthew McConaughey can be an electrifying onscreen presence. His breakthrough bit in 1993’s Dazed and Confused is one of those times; Killer Joe is another. He stars as the titular Texas full-time cop and freelance hit man in The Exorcist director William Friedkin’s second unconventional collaboration with screenwriter Tracy Letts (Bug), both adapted from Letts’ own stage plays.

Joe Cooper’s latest assignment comes from a low-life piece of trailer trash named Chris Smith (Speed Racer‘s Emile Hirsch), who hires Joe to kill his mother so he can pay off his debts with the “huge” $50,000 life insurance payout. The problem is Joe requires his $25K fee in advance, which Chris obviously doesn’t have. However, Joe is willing to waive his “no exceptions” rule in exchange for a retainer: specifically, Chris’ little sister, Dottie (Juno Temple, The Dark Knight Rises), a virgin who thinks killing their mom is “a good idea.”

Things don’t go as planned. Hell, things don’t go in any direction viewers would anticipate, giving the hick flick a coat of disturbia as thick as the Texas heat. Unease and discomfort saturate this twisted tale, and McConaughey is the unlikely vessel for its evil, as “menacing” is not one of the adjectives I’d readily affix to his name.

Likely to offend more people than it will seduce, Killer Joe at least makes its sick, inbred nature clear from scene one, as it hits you right in the face, somewhat literally, with the pubic thatch of Showgirls vet Gina Gershon. That’s kids’ stuff compared to the elongated final scene, in which McConaughey makes novel use of a food item that may have you swear off KFC for life. (Not for nothing is the redneck thriller rated NC-17.) Those still around will be thrown a polarizing, over-the-top ending that’ll have you hooting or cursing. I did the former. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.