Demonoid (1981)

What is it that they always say – “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop?”

Yeah, that probably best sums up this week’s new B-Movie Enema review. We’re making a run for the border, and, no, it’s not for Taco Bell… unless you want me to have explosive diarrhea. Well, maybe you do, but I don’t want that for myself. No, it’s for Alfredo ZacarĂ­as and his supernatural thriller, Demonoid!

You know what’s great about that? This is the second time we featured a movie written and directed by ZacarĂ­as. Oh yeah, I covered him way back in 2018 with his nature-gone-wild epic, The Bees. Even though the reviews of this movie isn’t exactly kind, calling Demonoid a “tedious possession movie” and what have you, I know what I saw in The Bees. I could argue that one was also sort of tedious in how it was made, but goddammit if it wasn’t fucking bonkers at times too. That gives me a tad bit of hope that I could get something decent here in Demonoid.

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Lurkers (1988)

What do you think? More Roberta Findlay? Sure! Why not?

Welcome to this week’s new B-Movie Enema review. I’m Geoff Arbuckle, and this is 1988’s Lurkers. Now, if you think back to 2019, I took a look at Findlay’s Prime Evil. That movie was okay for the most part. However, what I think everyone could agree on is how freakin’ awesome the devil creature that shows up is. The year before Lurkers and Prime Evil, Findlay also did Blood Sisters. That one was a little less than interesting but not without some fun.

The far more interesting elements of those movies, of course, is Roberta Findlay. I’ve mentioned about how Findlay worked with her husband, Michael, on films, but it wasn’t a great relationship. That said, she worked with him while they were separated. She did porn and horror… That’s about it. But that’s perfectly fine too. Most of her movies weren’t particularly high budget, but she often worked as both director and cinematographer on her films. The number of credits as either role on a film is fairly impressive considering she really only had a roughly 25 year career. My point is she kept busy making movies.

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Psychomania (1973)

Biker flicks were pretty popular between the mid-50s to the mid-70s. But not like the hero rides around on a bike and is bad ass and saves a little town from, I dunno, Nazis or something. No, some of these movies featured down right psychopathic killers on bikes who come in, drink your beer, rape your women, and, I dunno, wore Nazi paraphernalia. Wait… Anyway, here, in America, bikers kind of represented this “take no shit from anyone” kind of attitude that screams conservo-libertarian “shove your rights up your ass, my rights are more important” mindset.

They were a menace to more normal sensibilities of the typical suburban set. So much so, it got to the point where if you wore too much denim or not enough sleeves and didn’t wash your long hair and beard often enough, people were probably thinking you were a biker and probably going to bust heads. Look, I know I’m kind of shot out of a cannon here for the start of this week’s B-Movie Enema review, but I’m catching up to the thread here again.

Okay, so the origins of the “outlaw biker” films go back to Marlon Brando’s The Wild One in 1953. That was the movie that kind of revealed the subculture of biker clubs that had existed for a few years prior. While the success of that film would lead to a lot more movies, and even a book by Hunter S. Thompson about the most famous gang, Hell’s Angels, it really was our ol’ buddy Russ Meyer who made Motorpsycho in 1965 and turned this into a more exploitation type of biker gang flick. By the 70s, biker flicks were exported to the United Kingdom. Maybe our most popular example is this week’s featured flick – 1973’s Psychomania (originally released as The Death Wheelers in the United States).

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Girly (a.k.a Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly, 1970)

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema, my lovelies!

This week, we have a film from British cinematographer and director Freddie Francis – Girly. Now, this one was more commonly known as Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly in the United Kingdom. We’ll come back around to the utterly bizarre plot of Girly in a bit. First, we should talk about Freddie Francis.

Francis is best known for his work with Hammer Film Productions on films like The Evil of Frankenstein and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave and from Hammer rival Amicus Productions on The Deadly Bees and Tales from the Crypt. But, in truth, Francis was a very keen cinematographer. He twice won Oscars for 1960’s Sons and Lovers and 1989’s Glory. Beyond those films, he has a ton of other significant films he shot like 1980’s The Elephant Man directed by David Lynch, Karel Reisz’s 1981 film The French Lieutenant’s Woman starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, and Martin Scorsese’s creepy as hell 1991 remake Cape Fear.

He also shot Lynch’s 1984 version of Dune, so… you know… they can’t all be winners.

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Hellmaster (1992)

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema, my dearest of dear Enemaniacs!

These last few weeks have kind of turned into an adjunct Greatest Hits album for the blog. I covered a classic from the days gone by of Bizarre TV, a sleazy revenge flick, a sleazy women in prison film, and here we go again, but, this time, with a twist. I’m going waaaaay back to the early days of not just this site, but for B-Movie Enema: The Series, my hosting show you can find at here on the site, or on YouTube, or on Vimeo.

Let’s talk a litlte bit about John Saxon, star of 1992’s Hellmaster.

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Escape from Women’s Prison (1978)

Well, well, well… Last week I did one of those rape revenge exploitation films from the 70s. The week before, I revisited a horror film I once saw on Bizarre TV. Now, I’m looking at a good ol’ fashioned women in prison films. It’s like I’m on a greatest hits of B-Movie Enema tour.

Yes, it’s time to take a look at 1978’s Escape from Women’s Prison. You know what other box this movie ticks? Oh yeah… It’s Italian, baby! This movie was written and directed by Italian actor Giovanni Brusadori. In the director credit, he’s actually credited as Conrad Brueghel, but whatever. Brusadori was best known for appearing in the Laura Gemser Emanuelle: Queen of the Desert in 1982. For whatever reason, he decided to make a movie this time around. Now, supposedly, George Eastman, star of Anthropophagus, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, and Porno Holocaust, co-wrote this movie on (though without credit).

I guess what I’m getting at is that these types of late 70s and early 80s Italian sleazefest movies were all made by a small group of people so it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see George Eastman involved in some way.

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