Tag: action

‘Gator Bait (1974)

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Welcome back to B-Movie Enema!  It’s getting cold outside, but you know what we can do about that?  We can go down south and visit the sweaty swamps where a barefoot poacher by the name of Desiree stalks the area and wrangles alligators.

Did I mention our barefoot poacher is Claudia Jennings?

It’s high time for us to take a look at the film most people seem to remember her best for – ‘Gator Bait! Whenever I see someone talk about Jennings online and asks people what their favorite films of hers are, inevitably, there will be many, many answers of “Gator Bait!” in the comments.  Absolutely, positively, without a doubt, both this movie and the 1988 sequel ‘Gator Bait II: Cajun Justice, stood out on the video store shelves.  It’s hard to resist the siren call of the redheads that graced both movies’ boxes. Continue reading “‘Gator Bait (1974)” →

Lovely But Deadly (1981)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle4 Comments

Sometimes you just need kung fu girls fighting a drug ring in their school.

That’s what what we have this week – Lovely But Deadly.  The film was made by David Sheldon, and he’s had a pretty good, long career as mostly a producer or executive.  This is only one of three movies he directed (one of which he was not credited for), but he does have some pretty good writing and producing credits worth mentioning.  To start, he wrote the movie Grizzly, and its long-to-finish-sequel Grizzly II: Revenge.  He’s been involved with the films Abby, Devil Times Five, Sheba, Baby, The Evil, The Manitou, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, and a whole slew of blaxploitation flicks.  Dude got around, but mostly got around the behind the scenes side of things as he doesn’t actually have a lot of actual on-screen credits.

Sure, many of his movies deal with animals having enough of our shit as human beings.  This time around though, he decides to take it back to school with a tale of a cheerleader, nicknamed “Lovely”, who decides to go undercover to expose a drug ring after her brother overdoses and a bunch of kids get hooked on the junk.  Also, she knows kung fu.  I cannot emphasize that enough. Continue reading “Lovely But Deadly (1981)” →

Penitentiary (1979)

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We’re getting back to some good old blaxploitation with this week’s B-Movie Enema.  Penitentiary was written, produced, and directed by Jamaa Fanaka.

Fanaka was part of the L.A. Rebellion from the late 60s and into the late 80s.  This was a movement of black filmmakers whose whole intent was to make films that offered an alternative to what most deemed “classical” Hollywood films.  This was mostly influenced by Latin American and Italian cinema, but also from an emerging African cinema.

You see, the 1960s was a particularly turbulent time.  After a series of events like the Civil Rights Act, Affirmative Action, and the Watts Riots, society shifted and evolved very quickly.  Affirmative Action allowed for many more black students to attend colleges – and particularly at UCLA which got urged to create an ethnographic studies program to allow black filmmakers to tell more of their story and stories that would expose their struggles. Continue reading “Penitentiary (1979)” →

Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)

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Let’s get back into the depths of Full Moon Features!

In the 90s, Full Moon was killing it.  They were pumping out movie after movie after movie thanks to the boom of video stores and cable television.  You could make a handful of movies very inexpensively and, instead of the promotional costs to get the word out about a featured film in theaters, processing prints, making the deals with theaters to show the movie, etc., all you had to do is mass produce VHS tapes.  It would also be easy to sell your movie to HBO and Showtime as well.  The profit margin was much higher and you could turn that money right around into more movies for video stores and cable TV.

And, hey, and if you add a little sexy shenanigans with a pretty lead actress – even better!  That’s certainly what we have for you this week.  Another direct-to-video Full Moon selection with a little bit of sexy and a little bit of demon.  It’s 1994’s Dark Angel: The Ascent! Continue reading “Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)” →

Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties (1978)

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I love Jess Franco.  I do.  He started off in the 60s with films like The Awful Dr. Orloff and The Diabolical Dr. Z, the latter being a film I covered on this blog before.  These were black and white flicks that were beautiful and moody and incredibly artistic in style.  Once the later part of 60s came along, he transitioned into much more erotic fare.  He started doing things like Vampyros Lesbos as well as many full on X-rated type stuff with his muse and second wife Lina Romay.

Guess what…  I love that stuff too.  He’s just got a great flair to his movies that register as both incredibly artistic and deeply sensual.  Of course, the aforementioned The Diabolical Dr. Z is one of the finer films ever covered on this blog as it is incredibly well shot.  He also directed my favorite Ilsa film too – Ilsa, The Wicked Warden.  Now, yeah, you can say that isn’t fair because it wasn’t meant to be part of the series, but I’m counting it goddammit.  He also did one of the worst movies on this blog – Oasis of the Zombies.  I won’t get too hung up on that, though.

No, this week’s new B-Movie Enema will intersect his 70s eroticism with his muse Lina Romay.  This week, I’m watching Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties. Continue reading “Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties (1978)” →

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Last week, Russ Meyer Month started at B-Movie Enema with Mudhoney, a nice little tawdry tale in the American Plains during the Depression.  This week, we pick up a movie that is one of Meyer’s best known – Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

As I mused there, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a fairly well known movie.  There are two movies in Meyer’s filmography that probably get the most attention in terms of being trivia answers, but for different reasons.  There’s this one that we’re talking about this week for its fun title.  The other will be covered in two weeks because of who wrote it.

Curiously, though, as popular as Pussycat is, it was an unusual box office dud for Meyer.  Most of his films did fairly well.  There was a built-in audience at drive-ins full of horny guys wanting to see big breasted chicks.  You’d think none of these movies would fail, but this one did.  It wasn’t until later that it gained a cult status. Continue reading “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)” →

The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1976)

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Not that long ago, I covered the movie The Single Girls which starred Claudia Jennings.  Our lovely leading lady is back in a fun little action/exploitation/heist movie this week!

The Great Texas Dynamite Chase comes to us from director Michael Pressman.  Pressman is hardly a schlock auteur.  He would go on to make the cult classic Boulevard Nights which has been selected to be preserved by the Library of Congress as well as working with comedy heavyweights like Dan Aykroyd (Doctor Detroit) and Richard Pryor (Some Kind of Hero).  He’s more recently gone into television directing having done episodes of some Law and Order shows, Blue Bloods, and winning Emmys for Picket Fences.

My point is, this is hardly a flash in the pan kind of filmmaker.  And of course, The Great Texas Dynamite Chase would also be released by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.  However, it should be of note that this is an exploitation movie that comes with fairly decent reviews.  This was praised for being exciting and sexy enough for the drive-in crowd while still being tongue-in-cheek with its comedy to attract the older audiences.  I suspect it played better to the Texas and southwest crowd, but found an audience over the years and is truly an exploitation gem.

Continue reading “The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1976)” →

Caged Heat (1974)

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Oh baby do we have lots to talk about today, my dear Enemaniacs!

This week’s B-Movie Enema is Caged Heat.  It might, at first, come off as just a run of the mill, women-in-prison flick from the mid-70s.  It might even come off as some of that sleaze Roger Corman was trading in during the 70s as well.  To a very minor degree, I’d say you’re right about both things.

But… there’s a twist.  You see, Corman wasn’t happy with the women-in-prison flicks previously released by his New World Pictures.  He thought they were maybe missing something, something important, something fresh and new.  So he tapped a producer at the studio to see what life can be breathed into this subgenre of exploitation.  Enter Jonathan Demme.  He had produced a previous Corman women-in-prison release, The Hot Box.   This time, though, Demme wasn’t going to settle as a writer or producer.  He wanted to direct. Continue reading “Caged Heat (1974)” →