Tag: horror

Frankenhooker (1990)

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It’s the long awaited return of stone cold babe Patty Mullen and the even longer awaited bow for horror-comedy maestro Frank Henenlotter!

Henenlotter is best known for his Basket Case trilogy along with this week’s B-Movie Enema feature, Frankenhooker. Henenlotter was inspired by the exploitation films of 42nd Street in his home town of New York City. He loved these films growing up and he copied a lot of the camp and the gore of those films while also not passing up the opportunity for a little bit of sex.

After making a third Basket Case movie in the early 90s, he turned his love of the offbeat and oft-forgotten films of 42nd Street and get involved with the new boutique video releasing company Something Weird Video. He set about becoming an expert historian of exploitation and gory horror and was instrumental to the restoration of those long trashed movies of his youth. Shortly after returning, he began making documentaries. Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore, one of the documentaries he made shortly after returning to film, is a goddamn treat. I recommend that to any fan of schlock filmmakers and movies.

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The Beast in Heat (1977)

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Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before ol’ B-Movie Enema returned to the world of 70s nazisploitation.

This week, we’re talking about the 1977 Italian flick The Beast in Heat. Now, try to keep up here. The movie was originally called La Bestia in calore which is the Italian translation of The Beast in Heat. I point this out because you can look and see that the director on this is “Ivan Kathansky”. That name makes you think, “Ooh! It’s a Russian director! This is either extra spicy because it is a movie about a Nazi monster made by a damn, dirty Commie, or… Or…” I don’t know how to end that sentiment other than to make sure you understand that I’m thinking this is a Commie Nazi movie.

However, the director is actually Luigi Batzella, which now makes me think of a giant monster bat tearing apart a Japanese town. Kathansky is not the only pseudonym of Batzella’s, but that’s notable because critic Tim Lucas of Sight & Sound stated that this film is so reprehensible that there’s not a single real name associated with anyone in the movie. Exactly how true that is, I don’t know, but with a reputation like that, B-Movie Enema had to come calling.

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The Black Cat (1981)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

I love cats. Guys, I don’t mind saying it. I’m not a dog person. In fact, for the vast majority of the last 29 years, I’ve lived with at least one cat, and very often with two. These cats are as good as kids from my perspective. Most of those cats have been partners in crime with me. So, I guess you can say I have something in common with our lead in this week’s movie, The Black Cat.

However, this is only very loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story by the same name. In that, it’s about a man and his wife who love animals. In particular, he seems to have a special bond with a large, black cat. When he develops an addiction to the sauce, the cat decides he doesn’t really like the guy anymore which is only made worse by the drunk man torturing the cat by removing its eye, and even hanging the cat from a tree.

This 1843 story has been the inspiration, suggestion, or basis for many a film version. Universal Studios twice made movies “suggested” by the story, but neither held any kind of similarity outside having a black cat in them. Multiple times, Italians have made adaptations of this like Sergio Martino’s Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (a title that just rolls off the tongue) in 1971, Dario Argento’s version in the anthology film Two Evil Eyes, and then Fulci’s version that we’re going to talk about today.

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Nightmare Sisters (1987)

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We’ve got ourselves a trio of sexy scream queens for this week’s B-Movie Enema!

This week’s movie, Nightmare Sisters is one of only two films that featured all three of the 80s main ladies of b-movie horror – Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, and Brinke Stevens. The other movie? Well, that was Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. It should be noted that not only do those two movies featuring every teenage boy’s trio of preferred prom dates appear together, both movies were directed by our good friend David DeCoteau.

Now… Last time we saw ol’ Dave around here, it was the very disappointing Beach Babes 2: Cave Girl Island. It was very clear to me that there was hardly a script and hardly any budget. This time around I know there is hardly a script and zero budget. In fact, this movie was filmed in only four days. When you know these things going into your succubi movie, you’re going to view the movie through a much sharper lens. I mean, I expected a great deal out of Beach Babes 2. However, this time, knowing this is a weekend project and, well, having seen this movie before, I know what to expect.

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The Severed Arm (1973)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

This is gonna be a bit of a palette cleanser from last week.

This week’s new B-Movie Enema is gonna look at the 1973 horror revenge movie The Severed Arm from writer/director Tom Alderman. While this is a somewhat inconsequential horror movie from a low budget/indie standpoint, there are a few reasons why I wanted to take a look at it. Before that, though, who is Tom Alderman? Well… I don’t know. Alderman only directed one other movie that sounds like a possible porno (Coed Dorm), and wrote one other movie (The Master-Piece! – which does seem to have a cool poster). Aside from that, it seemed he came and went relatively quickly.

But why am I covering this movie and how do I know anything about this? Well, first and foremost, this was a movie I watched on the beloved Bizarre TV channel on Roku. I may have completed the ultimate tip of the ol’ hat to that now defunct channel, but I’m not done talking about the movies I was exposed to there. It was a movie that played a few times there and I was lucky enough to catch it.

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Resident Evil (2002)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

Oh boy.

So here’s a movie I’ve wanted to talk about in some way, shape, or form since I got into this Enema business – Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil. But why? Why would I want to dive deep into this series? Well, there are lots of reasons I can think of. First, it’s a movie based on a video game series. The genre of video game movies are lousy with movies that are, well, lousy.

Second, Paul W.S. Anderson himself. Look, I like his Event Horizon. I thought that movie was creepy, fun, and fine enough despite its bad reviews. I know people feel the same way about his follow up film Soldier. I didn’t see that one. Mortal Kombat… Eh… That’s a bad movie. It is a very, very bad, bad movie. That said, it’s kind of fun in its shitliness.

Third, I saw this movie. I was working at a movie theater on March 15, 2002 when this film came out. I saw it. It was bad. It was a big, dumb, bad action movie. But it made a shitload of money. Piles of dough was thrown at this movie by its fans. Five sequels later, people freaking love this movie and series. All this from a really bad movie that is kind of emblematic of the entire first decade of movies that launched the 21st century.

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Cannibal Girls (1973)

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Let’s check back in with 70s horror exploitation, shall we?

But let’s mix it up a little bit too by going north of the border to Canada! But this isn’t just any ol’ Canadian filmmaker and cast, oh no, dear Enemaniacs… We’re getting director Ivan Reitman for this week’s movie, Cannibal Girls! Now, if that name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the producer of David Cronenberg’s fantastic Shivers and Rabid. And if that’s not enough for you, he was then a man of mighty hits in the 80s with Stripes, Twins, and a little movie called Ghostbusters (and its sequel). So, yeah, he’s a big freakin’ deal.

Not for nuthin’, he also produced Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia.

But yeah, he got his start doing exploitation. But with Cannibal Girls, we kind of get some classic exploitation horror tropes that are almost uniquely 70s in its flavor. This is a type of situation where we have a young couple, or group of people, who are traveling and all of a sudden their car breaks down or they make a stop someplace out in the middle of nowhere, or at least in an unfamiliar place. There, they come across maniacs or… worse. Like cannibals! This is the sort of thing that mostly became popular post Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it wasn’t exactly new at the time of its release.

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