Tag: exploitation

Candy Stripe Nurses (1974)

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They’ll give us fast-fast-fast relief!

That’s what the poster says for this week’s movie, and I bet they mean it too! Welcome to another review here at B-Movie Enema. Also, welcome to another review of a movie from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures! 1974’s Candy Stripe Nurses was part of the company’s “nurses cycle”. However, there’s a very specific reason why we’re starting with this one, which happens to be the final entry of the five-film, loose series.

I may have used Valentine’s Day last week to do My Bloody Valentine because it’s a movie that has the day right in its goddamn title (and, frankly, the movie was overdue to get coverage here), but I won’t deny that this movie was nearly chosen instead. Thankfully, last week did feature the triumphant return of Cynthia Dale, so there’s that. But the main reason why this almost won out over that movie for the Valentine’s Day review?

Two words: Candice Rialson.

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Galaxina (1980)

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Welcome to B-Movie Enema, and let’s all say goodbye together to 2024.

I’m sure by now, people have made the final decision if 2024 was good, bad, or meh. I’m also guessing we’ve already made the determination that 2025 has to be better, right? Well, to send Old Man 2024 out, I figured it was high time to talk about the 1980 sci-fi comedy Galaxina.

Now, obviously, there’s an elephant in the room when it comes to this movie. We’ll talk about her in just a moment. First, what I find kind of interesting about this movie is that the movie is not without a great deal of imagination and fun with more than a hint of camp. But it wasn’t cheap. The movie cost $4 million. That’s a mid-range budget in 1980. What’s even more peculiar is that this is a mid-range budget movie that was originally supposed to be shot in three weeks. What’s more, is that it took LESS than 20 days to shoot because of bad weather. So, we have ourselves a multi-million-dollar picture that was supposed to be shot in less than three weeks, only for it to be shot in even less time, and just to get the movie out, scenes were cut so it leaves the movie sort of incomplete.

You gotta love these types of Hollywood lore.

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Spaced Out (1979)

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Since this is the holiday season, Enemaniacs, I figured I deserve a bit of a gift. After all, Metamorphosis was so lacking in charm and good vibes, that I kind of need something. So, for this week’s B-Movie Enema review, and with Christmas just around the corner, I’m gifting myself the return of a favorite around these parts, Mr. Norman J. Warren.

Hell yeah, guys, gals, and non-binary pals, Norman J. Warren is back!

One of the things I’ve always loved about our friend Norman is that he doesn’t seem to ever make the same movie twice. Certainly, if you go through his filmography, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any two movies that resemble each other in succession. That’s what we have here with 1979’s Spaced Out. In the 60s, Warren made sex comedies but decided to move into horror in the 70s. In three consecutive years, he directed Satan’s Slave, Prey, and Terror. All three of those have been covered here, and all three are quite different in terms of horror films. Spaced Out would be a return to his old form, as it were, with a comedy.

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Best Friends (1975)

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Welcome to a new B-Movie Enema review.

You know what? As we rush headlong into the holiday season across most of the world (and, let’s face it, America IS the rest of the world, am I right?), this is a time in which we should be thinking about our loved ones. Are they well? Are they sheltered from the incoming cold weather (stop it, Australia and New Zealand and wherever else… America is the center of the world, okay?)… Can they provide a warm meal or presents to their family during this time of year? You get what I’m saying.

Well, I don’t really know where I’m going with that opening paragraph, aside from some parenthetical American exceptionalism, but I do know that we’re going to be talking about the 1975 drama Best Friends. This movie comes from director Noel Nosseck. Nosseck actually had a decent career despite having no page on Wikipedia. Best Friends would be his first feature film, but prior to this, he worked on educational films about the dangers of heroin, LSD, and VD. He spent the remainder of the 70s after Best Friends doing pretty well for himself and getting some decent work. If you are a fan of the Cinema Snob, you might recognize one of Nosseck’s movies he directed in the 70s, Dreamer, one of the Snob’s Patreon poll winners that happened to be a lame bowling melodrama sort of in the vein of Rocky.

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Twister’s Revenge! (1988)

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Hot diggity god dang!

Welcome to another B-Movie Enema review. I’m Geoff. Nice to meet ya. Been here before? Yeah? Then, I’m glad you came back. This week, we return to the filmography of one Bill Rebane. We previously talked about his bonkers horror-thriller Blood Harvest starring Tiny Tim. This is actually his follow-up. We’re going to the redneck part of Wisconsin for a little Twister’s Revenge!

You know this movie is serious as shit because it has an exclamation point at the end of the title… TWISTER’S REVENGE!

Anyhow, Rebane was actually born in Latvia and came to the States in 1952 while still a teenager. As a kid, he went to school in Germany and was conversationally fluent in German, Russian, and the language of his parents, Latvian and Estonian. He learned English by watching American movies. I find that kind of interesting because it’s not uncommon for people who grew up in Eastern Europe to have learned English this way. I believe Mila Kunis also was one of those people who learned English through entertainment.

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The Wizard of Gore (1970)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

Welcome to a new review here at B-Movie Enema.

A guy I hadn’t yet covered at all to this point is Herschell Gordon Lewis. That’s a little bit of a surprise, isn’t it? This is B-Movie Enema. I’ve covered everything from Batman and Robin to a number of Russ Meyer films to freakin’ Bloodsucking Freaks. It would seem as though Herschell Gordon Lewis, the Godfather of Gore, would have shown up here before now. But, no, this week’s review, 1970’s The Wizard of Gore is his first go around here on the site.

If I am being kind of honest, I’m not entirely sure where I would have entered into the Lewis filmography. Sure, there are several of his movies that are known for his distinctive style (or lack of typical cinematic ability). Naturally, this movie is probably his crowning achievement as being one of the quintessential independent horror films that gave rise to the horror exploitation era of the 70s. Beyond that, there are other movies that are well known for being directed by Lewis like 1963’s Blood Feast and 1964’s Two Thousand Maniacs! While both of those films would have been good choices, they get talked about a lot. I suppose The Wizard of Gore has been too, but… eh. I had to choose something and this fit the criteria for this month of being women-in-peril and a 70s film. The last movie he made before a 30-year break from making films was 1972’s The Gore Gore Girls which was definitely in consideration for a review too.

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I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

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Welcome to the 450th review at B-Movie Enema!

It took a while to get here, folks, but here we are. Just over 10 years since starting this blog, I’ve knocked through major milestone after major milestone. But all the while there were a few movies that I hadn’t covered that I knew I would have to in some way or another. So, when it came to this year’s milestone, the 450th, I needed to cover one of those movies. In fact, when I came to the decision to cover the 1978 rape-revenge exploitation classic I Spit on Your Grave, I used that to help shape the entirety of this month’s October theme.

But why is this movie so famous, or infamous? Well, this is maybe one of the greatest examples of how it was received by critics as well as somewhat close-minded or ill-informed audiences when it was released in November 1978. For all my life until I saw the movie for the first time some years ago, I had two things about the movie relayed to me: 1) it was so disliked and balls-to-the-wall rapey that it almost comes across and something “dirty” to want to watch and 2) my older brothers would always talk about one particular scene concerning a girl, a guy, a knife, and a tub… oh, and that guy’s dick.

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The Last House on the Left (1972)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle8 Comments

Welcome to October, Enemaniacs.

October is a big deal here at B-Movie Enema. Ten years ago on October 3, the blog was created with the release of an Exorcist ripoff with a Rocky Horror-esque title from Italy, The Eerie Midnight Horror Show. I wouldn’t necessarily go back and read too many of those old reviews. They aren’t particularly great as the tone and the vibe of this blog were ever-shifting and evolving. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate milestones and the history of this blog.

To do so, and considering the 450th review is also due next week with a movie I’ve long been planning for such an occasion, we’re going to be celebrating Halloween a little grimier this year. This month, we’re going to dig deep into four 70s movies that encapsulate the harder-edged attitude of horror in the decade. So, look forward to things getting pretty trigger-warningly real over the next four weeks. And we also get a bonus Halloween review as per the usual around here. It all starts right here with one of the most famous, and highly-regarded, exploitation horror films of all time, Wes Craven’s debut film, The Last House on the Left.

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