The B-Masters Cabal

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 22, 2007, 10:19 am

I gobbled up all of those Russian fantasy films as soon as they came out on DVD. They are really something incredible. Living in a russian neighborhood full of sullen, cranky people in track suits, I wonder what happened and why my neighborhood couldn’t be guys with weird beards throwing wind demons around or tearing about on giant seahorses.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 22, 2007, 10:31 am

And on City of the Walking Dead — I love that Lenzi is so serious about this film. It makes it even better, though i always appreciated a good Claudio Fragasso interview where he laughs about what crap everything he ever did was. ZOMBIE 3 also featured zombies that could run, do spinning roundhouse kicks, scale columns and perch there for who knows how long, and of course, hold down lucrative jobs as popular disc jockeys at major radio stations.

Comment from Zack Handlen
Time: October 22, 2007, 2:23 pm

Real stupid question, but–are there other Italian horror movies that use the “power plant causes zombi-ism” gag? Because I [i]know[/i] I’ve seen that in a movie before, but I’m not sure if I’ve seen this particular film.

Comment from El Santo
Time: October 22, 2007, 2:50 pm

Bruno Mattei’s Night of the Zombies starts out by making you think that’s what’s going on. (The zombies’ true origin, once revealed, is so idiotic that City of the Walking Dead looks like something by Romero in comparison.)

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 22, 2007, 3:55 pm

Let’s see…
Zombie/2: voodoo
Zombie 3: Biological weapon
Zombie 4/After Death: voodoo
Hell of the Living Dead: at first it’s nuclear power plant
Burial Ground: I can’t even remember. It’s just spookiness that brings them back, right? Or anger that a grown midget was playing a child?
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (pseudo Italian, I know): experimental sonic insect control device. Probably later replaced by the pesticide that turned people into zombies in Grapes of Death
The Beyond: black magic
City of the Living Dead: black magic

Seems that in Italy, voodoo/black magic is the leading cause of zombie-ism. Scientific/military/nuclear explanations seem to dominate American zombie films.

Comment from lyzard
Time: October 22, 2007, 4:57 pm

So, Santo, who gets the exuberant breast-ripping in City Of The Walking Dead? Maria Rosaria Omaggio or Stefania D’Amario? (I rather liked her in Zombie, but I can’t say that her behaviour there was too sensible, either.)

Comment from Zack Handlen
Time: October 22, 2007, 5:10 pm

I think the movie I’m thinking of City of the Living Dead.

Is it weird that I now want to see all the movies Keith listed? Even the ones I’ve already seen?

Comment from lyzard
Time: October 22, 2007, 5:53 pm

It’s a contagion. Like the ash from cremated zombies. Or a virus let loose when its [*snicker, snicker*] fragile glass container shatters. There’s no defence and nowhere to run. You just have to….WATCH THESE DAMN MOVIES!!!! Or gouge out your own eyes. It’s all good.

Comment from El Santo
Time: October 22, 2007, 6:08 pm

“So, Santo, who gets the exuberant breast-ripping in City Of The Walking Dead? Maria Rosaria Omaggio or Stefania D’Amario?”
Neither, actually. The victim is one of the anonymous, wedgie-afflicted dancers on the set of the TV show Hugo Stigllitz interrupts with his abortive emergency broadcast.

Comment from lyzard
Time: October 22, 2007, 6:22 pm

One of the Solid Pyrite Dancers? Heh, heh, heh….I’m starting to look forward to this one.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 22, 2007, 8:07 pm

Zack — this is a healthy reaction. Embrace it. Embrace the gooey mess, for where else can you see a guy who looks like Klaus Kinski and, in the middle of a zombie attack, he finds a tutu and decides to put it on and pirouette about? Does Spielberg give you that? Orson Welles? No, only a visionary the size of Bruno Mattei can give you that.

Comment from Zack Handlen
Time: October 22, 2007, 8:46 pm

Holy crap, I’ve seen the tutu movie.

Why do I worry for my soul, when it is so clearly already lost?

Comment from Braineater
Time: October 22, 2007, 9:29 pm

Keith: Burial Ground is Etruscan black magic. Remember the “Profesy [sic] of the Black Spider”? And the “Nigths [sic] of Terror”? Geez, now I want to watch it again, too.

And as for Lenzi, I’m amused that he’s always so adamant that Nightmare City is NOT, repeat NOT a zombie movie. Pity, really, because that’s the only reason anybody watches it. Which reminds me, here’s one more for the list: Black Demons — black magic. No demons this time, though; instead, actual zombies. I think our Bertie is a bit confused.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 23, 2007, 7:15 am

Hey, does “The Gamma People” count as a zombie movie?

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 23, 2007, 9:28 am

Lenzi was always a great crime film director, and I think whenever he was saddled with a horror film, he tried to make it into a poliziotteschi film. Thus, you get City of the Walking dead, which is essentially a terrorist siege movie with zombies standing in for the Red Brigade or whatever. And how much time does Cannibal Ferox spend on that mafia subplot? I’ve yet to see Black Demons (it’s low on the Netflix list, underneath a mountain of Jess Franco stuff and the entire runs of UFO, The Saint, and The Avengers). What about Killing Birds and The Ogre?

I don’t know if Demons and Demons 2 are zombie films per se, but they are close. However, who knows what the hell caused all that nonsense to happen? I’m going with black magic, possibly heavy metal.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 23, 2007, 9:43 am

This is completely another tangent, but I’ll risk a reprimand and go on it anyways. Keith, you mentioned The Ogre. I went to the IMDB to find out what it was and I saw “Rated R for brief nudity.” That brought to mind a lot of PG-13 movies, like Casino Royal, that say “Rated PG-13 for brief language, violence, torture, and sexuality.” It’s like those Chinese movies that are “Rated R for some violence” and then you see something like that. Can someone explain this to me?

Comment from El Santo
Time: October 23, 2007, 10:47 am

Maybe. Can you clarify the question somewhat?

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 23, 2007, 11:31 am

It means just a little cussin’, or just a little nudity. What you want is “Rated R for explicit Nudity, Sexuality, Violence, and Monkey shenanigans.”

Seriously though, the list of explanations for ratings is getting ridiculous. Some fine examples:

Superbad:“Rated R for pervasive crude and sexual content, strong language, drinking, some drug use and a fantasy/comic violent image - all involving teens.”

Bratz: “Rated PG for thematic elements.”

The Gameplan: “Rated PG for some mild thematic elements.”

Twister: ” Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather”

Fidn your own! Hours of fun! http://mpaa.org/FilmRatings.asp

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 23, 2007, 11:33 am

Oh wait! Biollante has a good one: ” Rated PG for traditional Godzilla violence.”

And why was Dunston Checks In “Rated PG for some mild language and sensuality.” Which is worse — sensuality involving Dunston, or sensuality involving Jason Alexander?

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 23, 2007, 12:13 pm

The question is, how can a movie be rated “R” for “brief nudity” or “some violence”, and a PG-13 movie have “Violence, Language, Brief Nudity, Torture, Disturbing Images, and Drug Use”?

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 23, 2007, 12:29 pm

My complaint is that the explanations make some their choices for “R” films seem a lot more tame than the explanations for “PG-13″ films, almost as if some PG-13 films get away with being worse than R films.

Comment from El Santo
Time: October 23, 2007, 12:33 pm

And I’m sure some PG-13 movies do get away with being worse than some R films, just as some R films (like, say, Conan the Barbarian) used to get away with stuff that was way more graphic than what got other movies (like, say, Friday the 13th) threatened with an X.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 23, 2007, 12:40 pm

Is this the subject of that documentary “This Film is Not Yet Rated”, the seeming inequality in the ratings of certain films?

Comment from lyzard
Time: October 23, 2007, 2:08 pm

Your rating for The Gameplan put me in mind of the best one I ever saw here. I can’t remember the film, but it was rated G and had - gasp! - “mild themes”.

Comment from Braineater
Time: October 23, 2007, 2:44 pm

I guess sexuality, drug use and violence are good family fun — and torture, certainly; just ask the US Justice Dept. But nudity? A glimpse of a nipple will send you straight to hell, my friend. That’s why (bringing this back on-topic) we must thank Piero (City of the Walking Dead, Burial Ground) Regnoli for showing us what to do if we should ever catch sight of a breast.

Personally, I thought The Ogre should have been rated “R for insufficient nudity”. And I actually DID know a woman who forbade her children to watch Godzilla movies because the “traditional Godzilla violence” might corrupt them. As though they might grow up and lay waste to an East Asian city, or something.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 23, 2007, 3:45 pm

I’m Keith, creator of Teleport City, and I wholly endorse the implementation of a “rated R for insufficient nudity” standard.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 23, 2007, 3:48 pm

If you believe Sharon Stone, that could be a question of who’s president (She blamed Bush for there not being a make-out scene between her and Halle Berry in “Catwoman”). During the Clinton Presidency, “The Titanic” had nudity, sexuality, maybe some language, and disturbing (yet funny) images of drowned people and people falling from heights and hitting stuff on the way down, and it got PG-13.

But back on the subject, the ominous image of an unknown airplane landing at an airport, after which the bringers of death pour out of it is a powerful one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the movie lives up to that.

Comment from JessicaR.
Time: October 24, 2007, 1:47 am

I’d just like to know that wether fleeing through the jungle or an urban hellhole from the undead how to the women in these films always keep their bangs so teased and their eye makeup so heavy?

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: October 24, 2007, 2:32 am

Rated X for mis-leading poster graphics? “Wait a minute this movie has only one giant snake in it and no breasts at all!”

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 24, 2007, 9:22 am

If the Presidency is to blame, how do we account for the 70s and 80s, when Reagen was in command but the movies were packed to the gills with gratuitous nudity and violence, even G and PG movies. Glorious was the day I, as a lad, went to see Clash of the Titans and got to see a fine, bare female ass on screen.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 24, 2007, 10:18 am

“Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger” was another one of those. There were a couple others that I distinctly remember seeing PG and PG-13 ratings and then seeing “nudity” or even “graphic violence” on the TV Guide summary. Hmm…I think “Airborne” and “Nate and Hayes” were among them.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 24, 2007, 10:55 am

Ah, I thought of another good example, Keith: “Stranger and the Gunfighter.” I believe that was PG and that had lots of bare behinds and kung fu action.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 24, 2007, 11:36 am

Logan’s Run had a lot of nudity, an orgy, and magical pink drug smoke, and it was PG. Dragonslayer had male AND female nudity, and it was a Disney film. It used to be a lot more common.

However, I think nowadays, the entire concept of ratings has ceased to matter for the majority of Americans. I’ve been in a huge number of hard R movies that were still full of families and little children. I know ratings matter to some, but at least up here in NYC, ratings matter to politicians and employees of the MPAA, and that’s about it.

Comment from lyzard
Time: October 24, 2007, 2:00 pm

Blood And Lace, anyone?

Comment from Zack Handlen
Time: October 24, 2007, 2:43 pm

Well, hey, if you’re offering…

Comment from John Doe
Time: October 24, 2007, 7:33 pm

Very enjoyable reviews. I especially appreciated the brief foray into Russian history. Bad movie afficiandos must be some of the best educated cultists around.

Comment from Tom Meade
Time: October 24, 2007, 9:36 pm

I’m kicking myself now for not seeing Ruslan and Ludmilla when it played at the ACMI. And Amphibian Man. And yet I managed to see the crappy sci-fi film where the go to the stars in cheap suits and cheap armchairs and almost run into the sun.

However the Russian history stuff was fascinating. I only knew what I’d pieced together from folk tales and that telemovie about Catherine the Great.

My favourite ratings shennanigan is when a film gets theatrically released as an MA, for example, and then bumped-up to an R for the DVD.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 25, 2007, 1:16 pm

Or the epidemic of R and PG-13 movies that are “UNCUT AND UNCENSORED!!!!!” unrated editions when they come to DVD, and it’s either the exact same movie or they added in three seconds of extra dialog.

Comment from Braineater
Time: October 25, 2007, 4:12 pm

Six seconds in the Director’s Cut than comes out later.

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: October 26, 2007, 2:27 am

What if Fulci gets to go back and re do it, like big name directors do? “Thank god, it always bothered me that it never made sense, I have completely re-edited it and added in loads of digital effects of dinosaurs? “

Comment from Tom Meade
Time: October 26, 2007, 4:59 am

That would, thematically speaking, be eerily appropriate.

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: October 26, 2007, 5:36 am

Well perhaps he can go back and re-edit the later one so they make less sense.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 26, 2007, 11:53 am

Lucio fulci is proud to present his true vision of MURDER ROCK.

Comment from Nathan Shumate
Time: October 26, 2007, 2:00 pm

What if Fulci gets to go back and re do it, like big name directors do? “Thank god, it always bothered me that it never made sense, I have completely re-edited it and added in loads of digital effects of dinosaurs? “

Given that Fulci’s been dead for ten years, that would totally rawk. “The First Zombie Director’s Cut!”

Comment from lyzard
Time: October 26, 2007, 4:59 pm

You know, I don’t think during MONTH OF THE LIVING DEAD is the most appropriate time to be picking on the dead guy.

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: October 27, 2007, 2:29 am

It’d be a hell of a career move though wouldn’t it? They’d be dying to work with him.
Sorry.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 27, 2007, 5:40 am

I can imagine Fulci in the afterlife, teaming up with a naked, headless, female ghost armed with a spear gun and going after the restless dead with a laser bow.

Comment from Nathan Shumate
Time: October 27, 2007, 9:50 am

No, that’s Keith Allison’s afterlife.

Comment from HP
Time: October 28, 2007, 6:19 pm

Speaking of changing MPAA standards, anyone seen The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane? A pre-Taxi Driver, 13-year-old, buck-naked Jodie Foster having movie sex, and it only got a PG. Today, it would get you thrown in prison.

(Also in the film: bloody corpses in the basement, pedophiliac menacing, and a crushed hamster. Not a bad little Canadian horror flick, especially if you prefer lingering creepiness to jump scares.)

And to think I found the DVD in Kroger’s.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 29, 2007, 10:01 am

Nathan knows me well.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 29, 2007, 10:23 am

“Speaking of changing MPAA standards, anyone seen The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane? A pre-Taxi Driver, 13-year-old, buck-naked Jodie Foster having movie sex, and it only got a PG.”

I’m told that it was actually her older sister who acted as the body double for that scene.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 29, 2007, 11:00 am

The way current laws are, I think even that would be prosecutable if someone was having a slow day. You can run afoul of the law for even implying sex involving minors, even if it’s only the character who is under age and the actors are all legal. This was done to dispel the myth that anyone under the age of 18 has or wants to have sex.

Comment from Tom Meade
Time: October 29, 2007, 12:01 pm

There was this film I’ve forgotten the name of where an underage sex scene (or was it menstruation - I can’t remember) was staged using a dummy, and a whole swathe of angry people protested it angrily and it almost got banned or something. Because I live in a country with crappy censorship laws. But in the end I think it got through?

Eventually, Margaret Pomeranze will use live bullets.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 29, 2007, 1:01 pm

Wasn’t underage sex a regular part of Beverly Hills 90210? Or have times changed that much since I was a kid?

Comment from El Santo
Time: October 29, 2007, 2:33 pm

“Or have times changed that much since I was a kid?”
It’s not so much the times that have changed as it is the US Attorney General. Before al Qaeda realigned all of the government’s priorities, John Ashcroft could apparently think of nothing better to do than to crack down on sex in entertainment. Hell, he even went so far as to throw a tarp over the statue of Justice out in front of the Supreme Court building every time he gave a speech there, just to make sure that not even inanimate, bronze boobies could sneak onto American TV screens.

Comment from KeithA
Time: October 29, 2007, 3:05 pm

Times have changed. I seem to remember just a couple years ago one of those dippy teen sex comedies being threatened with a lawsuit because characters identified as under 18 had sex. Things seemed to have calmed down a bit, which was lucky for Superbad. Still, it could be worse. You could be Genarlow Wilson.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 29, 2007, 5:14 pm

I remember watching “Can’t Hardly Wait” with the ever-lovable…I mean ever-annoying Jennifer Love Hewitt, and there was a scene where the nerd gets drunk and goes into “the make-out closet” with like two girls. At the high school I went to and with some of the people I was acquainted with, it would definitely not be “the make-out closet.”

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: October 30, 2007, 2:15 am

Hey teenage sex is fine as long as the participants understand that:
a) one will get an STD
b) the girl will get pregnant and have to give the child away for adoption tearily
c) everyone will learn LESSONS

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: October 30, 2007, 2:18 am

That reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons where Apu wants to get his wife pregnant, so Homer has them dress like high school students, go to the make-out point in a car, and read a script about him going off into the military before having sex, saying that said situation always ends in pregnancy.

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: October 30, 2007, 5:25 am

“John Ashcroft could apparently think of nothing better to do than to crack down on sex in entertainment.”

I guess he was on Jason Vorhee’s side back in the eighties then.