Sugar Hill (1974)

Let’s raise the dead on this week’s new review at B-Movie Enema!

It’s the second week of my little theme month exploring some gems of 70s blaxploitation horror films. This week, I’m digging into 1974’s Sugar Hill from director Paul Maslansky. First and foremost, don’t confuse this with the 1994 movie of the same name starring Wesley Snipes. While both of these movies have a crime element, the earlier film takes place in Houston, while the Snipes vehicle takes place in the Harlem neighborhood of Sugar Hill.

Also, Maslansky’s Sugar Hill deals with voodoo.

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Death Warmed Up (1984)

It’s time for another shambling review here at B-Movie Enema!

We don’t cover New Zealand enough around here, if I’m being honest. The islands that make up the southern hemisphere nation have made quite a splash in film over the last 40+ years. While it’s unfair to tie New Zealand’s film legacy to Australia’s, it might be fair to say that after the rise of Australian cinema in the 70s, New Zealand was able to follow suit and offer its own blend of plots, concepts, and quirks to film audiences.

What’s kind of interesting, this site has been full of Kiwi products over the last year and a half. In March of last year, I looked at Peter Jackson’s adult take on The Muppet Show, 1989’s Meet the Feebles. The wonderful 1985 science fiction drama, The Quiet Earth, came to the site in the form of a review in July. Then, in August of last year, the 70th episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series hopped in our Battletruck to watch Warlords of the 21st Century. All three of those movies have their own qualities that are fun, thought-provoking, or just outright weird. Now, it’s time to discuss another Kiwi film of note – David Blyth’s 1984 sci-fi zombie flick, Death Warmed Up.

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One Dark Night (1982)

It’s time for yet another B-Movie Enema article (the 425th to be exact)!

This week, I’m looking at a movie that I’ve known for decades. Even going back to when I was a little kid and watching scary movies between my fingers trying to hide my eyes, I seem to remember a movie about a girl spending a night alone inside a mausoleum and ultimately getting attacked by zombies and having to fight her way out. The problem was, every time I tried looking up what that movie was I was trying to remember so I can try to find it to watch again, somehow either I kept getting it mixed up with or finding the result to be 1981’s Hell Night starring Linda Blair.

It’s not that because it’s 1982’s One Dark Night starring Meg Tilly!

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Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1988)

Oh boy… One I’ve long been leaving on the back burner finally flies into the forefront…

Welcome to this week’s B-Movie Enema review. This time around, I check back in with the goofy Zombie series, and leave it to the Italians to be weird. Well… sort of. The weirdness of this is not entirely their fault. It’s partially, for once, our fault. Stupid Americans.

Allow me to explain. If you’re reading this blog, you already basically know that Zombi is the Italian title for George Romero’s masterpiece Dawn of the Dead (dollars-for-donuts my pick as the best horror film ever made). Not willing to let any time pass them by without taking full advantage of a possible ripoff of that greatness that is Dawn, in comes Lucio Fulci and his Zombi 2 (aka Zombie here in America, as it is not a sequel here but a different movie altogether). Nine whole years later, Fulci would start in on another entry that doesn’t seem to have anything related to either Dawn or Zombie, but would continue the whole zombie apocalypse thing and also have a flying head that comes out of a fridge to bite someone. That would be 1988’s Zombi 3. Zombie 3 is a bit of a mess, but it’s also got some fun with the inconsistency of how the zombies operate. One thing that is unfair about Zombie 3 is that Fulci should not get full credit as he got very ill and the film had to basically be mostly shot by Claudio Fragasso (of Troll 2 fame) and Bruno Mattei (of Shocking Dark fame).

Alas… Zombi 3 is the final chapter of a VERY loose trilogy for the Italians.

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The Beyond (1981)

Now, this is the Italian stuff I look forward to covering.

After taking on Hercules twice in a row, now I get to return to the warm embrace of Lucio Fulci with his Gates of Hell trilogy. I’ve already knocked out the first chapter, City of the Living Dead, last month. Now it’s time to get to what most would usually list as the best of the trio, The Beyond. So, buckle up and prepare for this week’s dose of B-Movie Enema!

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City of the Living Dead (1980)

Fulci is back yet again on B-Movie Enema. Why? Because ol’ Lucio needs more attention if I’m being honest. Sure, I’ve covered many of his movies in the past, but there are oh so many more that I could cover. What better place to dig into more of his filmography than with the Gates of Hell trilogy of his?

So, here we are. I’ve packed my bags, bought my plane tickets, and have landed in the City of the Living Dead. This is Fulci in what’s likely his prime. He’s not too far off from his major success of Zombie (known in Italy as Zombi 2, but I’m not going to get into all that Italian titling business). That pretty much wrote a check for Fulci to do whatever he really wanted. He first stopped off with a crime action flick, Contraband, but started developing the idea of City of the Living Dead. This film was greenlit while he was working on the action flick, so, he took off and left Contraband under the direction of his assistant to get to work on City of the Living Dead.

It’s wild to think that a director can just leave a production to start his next, but Italy is a wild place, man.

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