Ator the Invincible (1983)

The second Ator movie, somehow even cheaper and shoddier than the first.

Ator (Miles O'Keefe) is living an easy life after his earlier exploits (which are recapped at length early in the film to pad it out), he is recruited by Mila (Lisa Foster) to help save her father (William Berger) from the evil Zor (David Brandon). The way to the castle of Zor is long (somewhat too long) and includes various battles against ridiculous creatures and monsters...

The first Ator film wasn't that great but it was much better than this nonsense. It is all a bit too cheap and lacks much of a plot, lots of swords and sorcery yes but what does it all mean at the end of the day apart from plenty of muscles and grunting?

Afghanistan - The Last War Bus (1989)

Plenty of action but not a lot of coherent plot.

Hondo (Mark Gregory) is a mercenary who is sent on a top secret mission into Afghanistan to locate a lost American officer and a bus (yes!) 

However, this is a very special bus as there are top secret plans hidden aboard. Hondo is a one man army, making his way across the country wiping out half of the Russian Army. But to escape, Hondo and some other Americans he frees must fix up the bus...

This isn't a very good film though has plenty of action. Naturally the only person who seems to know how to shoot straight is Hondo who can even shoot down helicopters with a shot gun. Despite all of the blood shed, the film is often a bit dull and slow.

Hands of Steel (1986)

Cyborg killer nonsense that somehow works.

It is the near future (well as far as the film was concerned, in fact it is 1997). The environment has collapsed and society isn't far behind. Moseley (Franco Fantasia) is the last hope for mankind but he is almost killed by a mysterious assailant, a hard bodied maniac called Paco (Daniel Greene) who is now on the run. It seems though that Paco is a cyborg sent by the evil Turner (John Saxon) but Paco failed to carry out his mission due to his latent humanity breaking out. Turner now sends his minions to dispose of Paco...

Paco is hiding out at a remote bar run by Linda (Janet Agren) where he spends his time defeating various trucker hoodlums at arm wrestling...

This film is rather low budget, this means a lot of dreary storyline with little happening is used to pad the film out, however when we do finally get to the final battle action set piece it is pretty spectacular and well worth waiting for. A great film overall, though doesn't make a lot of sense.

Touch and Die (1992)

A complicated if not very exciting thriller.

Frank Magenta (Martin Sheen) is a investigative reporter who is looking into the candidacy of presidential hopeful Scanzano (David Birney). Scanzano is doing well in the polls but is running out of money. 

Magenta discovers that stolen plutonium is being used to raise funds for the campaign, a deadly conspiracy which leaves a trail of dead bodies behind (some due to radiation poisoning and other quicker methods). Magenta and his family including his daughter Emma (Renée Estevez) are also in the firing line...

This is a long drawn out TV movie and could have done with some editing. The story is fine and certainly well travelled taking in Rome, Paris, NY and ..er.. Africa. The story is interesting but too long winded to maintain much level of excitement. 

The Day the Sky Exploded (1958)

One of the earliest Italian science-fiction movies and truly isn't that good.

McLaren (Paul Hubschmid) is chosen to be the first astronaut into outer space in a multi-national mission. The launch goes as planned but soon disaster strikes and asteroids are sent hurtling towards the Earth causing disasters all over the world! 

The only way the world can be saved is by the West and the Soviets working together and using their nuclear arsenals for good...

The movie has some good ideas, and some of the plot points will re-appear in later films. However, this is all rather odd and poorly made and the poor special effects (though fairly standard for the time) are overly padded out with stock footage. The film is what it is, and is worth watching for the curiosity value and for the plot being quite novel in many ways.

Light Blast (1985)

An insanely violent 1980s crime/science fiction film.

Dr Soboda (Ennio Girolami) is a renegrade scientist who has developed a death ray. He uses it to blow up a train and melt the unfortunate couple getting it on inside a boxcar. Soboda wants millions of dollars from the San Francisco authorities otherwise he will use his death ray again. He indeed does use this at a race track to deadly effect.

Supercop Inspector Ronn (Erik Estrada) is tasked with stopping Soboda. His investigations consists of getting into a string of fights including in a morgue! In fact there are a lot of fights in this, many many fights and many many deaths.

This is a fun 1980s action romp, full of stunts and action scenes and doesn't make a lot of sense. Not a film for character development, much in the way of plot or any logic. But the film is highly enjoyable as a mindless action romp so who cares?

Super Seven Calling Cairo (1965)

The success of James Bond in the 1960s sparked a whole wave of copycat films of various quality, this one isn't bad at all.

Super 7 (Roger Browne) is a British agent who is tasked to find a sample of a new super secret radioactive material which has been hidden in a camera. Super 7 heads to Cairo to find that the camera has been sold to a tourist by mistake. Unfortunately the bad guys led by the rather sinister ex-Nazi Alex (Massimo Serato) are also after the material and are quite happy to leave a trail of dead and broken bodies behind them.

Of course as this is a James Bond pastiche there are a number of beautiful women (including Fabienne Dali and Rosalba Neri) involved, some foes and some friends though as the film progresses its hard to know which is which...

This is a fun film that is quite outrageous in how it copies Bond but really thats how it should be. Fairly low budget but full of action.

The Salamander (1981)

Not quite as good as it could have been but this is an engaging and complex thriller.

A number of prominent figures in Italian society have been murdered. Police officer Dante (Franco Nero) investigates the murders which are linked by a calling card of the figure of a salamander. Dante begins to unravel a fascist plot to stage a coup and now his life and that of Lili (Sybil Danning) is in danger...

This film has a great cast including Anthony Quinn and Christopher Lee though at times can be a bit hard going. The storyline is complicated but lacks the right amount of energy and dynamism to make this compelling and not a bit of a slog. The film is worth seeing though for the good performances and the intrigue which can be down right dark at times, especially in the torture scenes.

Beyond Justice (1991)

A desert romp and also utterly terrible.

A spoilt rich kid (David Flosi) is kidnapped by his father (Kabir Bedi) and taken to the desert to become the next Emir of a violent clan in Morocco. His spoilt rich mother Christine (Carol Alt) hires ex-CIA agent Burton (Rutger Hauer) to rescue him. Christine insists on tagging along though as Burton takes on the Emir's (Omar Sharif) goons...

This is pretty poor stuff, so disjointed and confusing. The reason for this is that this is a film length version of a five hour TV mini series! Maybe the original series makes sense but this film edit so often doesn't. Hauer does his usual action hero stuff and that can be good at times, but the problem is the rest of this mess. 

You really do get the feeling Hauer, Sharif and Elliot Gould, who plays Christine's lawyer, are pretty wasted here. Fast forward between the action scenes and it is entertaining enough.

Robot Holocaust (1987)

The post-apocalypse has never been more dangerous... or boring.

It is the post-apocalypse on a planet called New Terra (even though a rather intact Manhattan is clearly visible in some of the outside shots and Central Park in others). People in rags fight and die until the evil rule of Dark One and his robot army, led by the incredibly campy and over the top Valaria (Angelica Jager).

Neo (Norris Culf) arrives at this hell on ..er.. New Terra and is persuaded to help Deeja (Nadine Hartstein) rescue her scientist father Klyton (J. Buzz von Ornsteiner) from the Dark One as he has invented a weapon to finally defeat the Dark One. Neo assembles a mixed crew of scantily clad heroes and an annoying robot to face a series of dangers and quite a few rather inept fights.

The plot alone means this film won't be a cinematic classic but films like New Barbarians had ropey plots too but were still great fun to watch. The main problem with Robot Holocaust is that it is all so lifeless and dreary. Fights are slow and pointless, the characters move between somewhat similar looking though apparently completely different areas of the "wasteland" slowly for no reason. It is a terrible film, one of the worst ever. It is however, well worth watching for Angelica Jager alone. An astonishing performance is more ways than one.

The Visitor (1979)

An entertaining if somewhat confusing and bizarre piece of science-fiction / horror.

The forces of good and evil are battling across the universe. On little old Earth a young girl called Katy (Paige Conner) is possessed by telekinetic powers and a desire to cause evil, her poor mum Barbara (Joanne Nail) gets crippled after Katy (accidentall? Maybe, maybe not.) shoots her in the spine. Police detective Durham (Glenn Ford) is convinced there is something going on with Katy, though the girl's demonic pet falcon soon sorts that out...

Meanwhile, Jerzy (John Huston) has arrived on Earth to find Katy and prevent her mum becoming pregnant again as the second child will be bad news for the universe...

It is all rather confusing with often strange visuals and a bizarrely inappropriate soundtrack. The demonic horror does work at times though, the film may have been better if it had concentrated on that and not the outer space battle stuff. However, the nonsense and oddness does make the film pretty unintentionally funny. Conner plays a great role as the demon child, though as with most 8 year olds it probably wasn't entirely acting.

Atom Age Vampire (1960)

A rather squalid and awful little film.

Jeanette (Susanne Lorette) is an exotic dancer who is facially disfigured after a car accident. She is approached by Professor Levin (Alberto Lupo) and his assistant Monique (Franca Parisi) who have developed a ground breaking method to heal skin in their dingy little lab full of rabbits in cages and radiation. The method works but Jeanette, whom Levin has become obsessed with, requires regular treatments. Those treatments need the glands from murdered women. Levin commits these murders after he, for some reason, transforms into a weird looking beast...

A film that makes no sense, scenes end abruptly even mid dialogue and everything about the film is rather shoddy. The film is quite entertaining but mostly because of it's awfulness. 

Don't really expect any vampires, the confusing title is referred to in the English dubbed dialogue. The Italian title translates to Seddok the heir of Satan, which makes slightly more sense.

Assignment: Outer Space (1960)

Wobbly rockets in space in this rather odd space opera.

Ray (Rik Van Nutter) is a journalist who is blasting out into outer space to see what is going on out at the space station, his arrival does not please George (David Montresor), the space station commander who seems to be hiding something. We soon find out what, a space ship is returning to Earth out of control and, unless it can be stopped, will wipe out all life! To save Earth, Ray, George, Lucy (Gabriella Farinon) and the cool Al (Archie Savage) must head out in an apparent suicide mission in a desperate attempt to save everything...

The idea is good as is the ambition, though the budget and ability unfortunately falls pretty short. The space ships literally wobble on the end of strings and the film is full of oddness and many of the common 1950s/60s science fiction tropes including weird codenames for people. A fun film though.

Rats: Night of Terror (1984)

One of a number of Italian Mad Max rip-offs, though this time the gang of raggedy marauders from the bad lands, in their beat up old vehicles, have to face... rats?

The group, led by Kurt (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua), arrive at a mysterious abandoned town that seems to be only inhabited by rats. They discover an underground science base with fresh food and flashy light bleepy tech. However, then the rats start to attack. In various gruesome ways too, the gang desperately battle for survival with their guns, tankettes and flamethrowers. Unfortunately as the gang seem to collectively have less brain cells than bullets the rats outwit them time and time again. Help is on the way, well they think anyway...

This really is a strange film, the gang really are inept. Characters like Deus (Tony Lombardo) and Duke (Henry Luciani) are pretty one dimensional and wouldn't last five minutes against the New Barbarians for example. Video (Gianni Franco) provides some moments of really strange humour. Violent, rather nasty and pretty weird.

Revolver (1973)

An intense film. The wife (Agostini Belli) of prison officer Cipriani (Oliver Reed) is kidnapped in order to force him to help prisoner Milo (Fabio Testi) escape. Cipriani facilities the escape but immediately things start to go wrong. Testi doesn't know who would want him out of gaol. Cipriani recaptures Milo to force the kidnapper's hand. He ends up taking Milo to Paris where he finds himself embroiled in a complicated plot involving a French pop star Al Niko (Daniel Beretta) and the killing of politicians...

Truthfully the ending of the film is a bit baffling as Cipriani finds himself hitting against the wall of the establishment but before that the film becomes a highly enjoyable thrill ride with the odd couple of Cipriani and Milo finding they can trust no one, and hardly trust each other. 

The film lacks as much violence as others in this genre but makes up for it with plenty of emotion and cool. The two leads give great performances.

Contamination (1980)

A genuine "video nasty" from the 1980s and you can see why as it had plenty of exploding abdomens. A freighter arrives at New York with a dead crew, and they have died in an incredibly gruesome manner. The police discover some mysterious green eggs, one proceeds to explode covering the cops in goo... the cops then die horribly by giving their innards some air.

Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) is investigating for the US government, enlisting the help of police man (and only survivor of the earlier gore fest) Tony Aris (Marino Masé). After some experiments in the lab (including blowing up a rat) they think the eggs and the goo have an extraterrestrial origin... from Mars to be exact. Holmes tracks down ex-astronaut Hubbard (Ian McCulloch) who went off the rails following his mission. He indeed did see the eggs on Mars though his fellow astronaut Hamilton (Siegfried Rauch) denied there was anything there. Pity he died in a plane crash... or did he?

Complete nonsense of course, obviously influenced by Alien though not a complete rip-off. A fun film if approached in the right way, and that right way is to have a laugh at the ridiculous alien monster and exploding bellies. Entertaining rubbish. The film was apparently funded by Columbian drug barons, perfect!

Bloody Pit of Horror (1965)

A bizarre film containing much torture and death, though all with a strange air of camp. The Crimson Executioner is a notorious maniac who is put to death in his own castle. Hundreds of years later that castle is inhabited by a deranged bodybuilder called Travis (Mickey Hargitay). When an erotic film crew turn up at his castle, he initially turns them away but when he sees his ex Edith (Luisa Baretto) is amongst them he changes his mind.

Then the deaths begin, in horrible and bizarre manner including a strange spider web with booby trapped darts (which is in fact a complete flop). Rick (Walter Brandi) manages to avoid being killed by an incredibly slow bed of nails. Having beaten up Travis' rather poor henchmen, he discovers Travis' torture chamber where he prances from torture to torture, including putting Edith on a rather slow grill...

It is all rather weird. Despite the sadism and torture, the sheer campness of the Crimson Executioner as he jumps around just makes everything so absurd. Somehow it makes a film detailing the painful torture and destruction of young men and women rather silly and very cheesy.

Yor: The Hunter from the Future (1983)

A fantastic movie. Fantastically confused, fantastically cheesy and fantastically odd. But just fantastic. Yor (Red Brown) is a buff Conan-esque like figure with great hair who saves Pag (Luciano Pigozzi) and Kalaa (Corinne Cléry) from an unconvincing beast in a wild land of animal skins and axes. Yor is a bit of a lost soul who doesn't really know where he comes from, Pag and Kalaa (who takes a shine to Yor) tag on along with him on his vague quest.

He discovers another woman Roa (Ayshe Gul) who seems to have a similar ancestry to Yor, and also takes a shine to him to Kalaa's fury. Luckily Roa is soon despatched by some unconvincing ape men. Yor and company finally arrive at a mysterious island ruled by the Overlord (John Steiner). The movie then switches from a low budget sub-Conan action film to a low budget science-fiction romp as Yor discovers his parents were from outer space. Yor leads the revolt against the evil Overlord and his army of rather immobile robots...

A terrific film really, it might be all rather cheap and unoriginal but it is also very much fun. We have to wait a long time for the appearance of the main villain, the Overlord but he is worth the wait in all his Darth Vader cosplaying glory.

The Loves of Hercules (1960)

A hilariously bad sword and sandal tale. The wife of Hercules (Mickey Hargitay) is killed by the treachery of Licos (Massimo Serato) who blames his King (and who Licos kills as well). Hercules turns up wanting revenge but is faced by the King's daughter Deianira (Jayne Mansfield) instead. Hercules falls in love with Deianira (and thus seems to get over his wife rather easily!)

However, Licos is continuing his schemes as he wants the throne, and Deianira, for himself. He has Deianira's fiancé murdered and Hercules is blamed. Hercules goes away and gets entangled in the land of the Amazons and subject to Hippolyta's (Tina Gloriani) sinister lusts and is in danger of being turned into a tree...

The film is ridiculously campy nonsense with poor dialogue and acting, rather ropey action and mediocre special effects. The Hydra, which Hercules fights, looks a bit like a carnival float. However, the film is great fun and a complete cheese fest.

Starcrash (1978)

Hilariously camp space opera. Akton (Marjoe Gortner) and Stella (Caroline Munro) are smugglers on the run from imperial forces. Their luck finally runs out and they are captured but then they are given a secret mission by the Emperor (Christopher Plummer), they must discover the secrets of the usurper Count Zarth (Joe Spinell) and rescue the Emperor's son Simon (David Hasselhoff).

Assisted by the robot L (Judd Hamilton) - who speaks with a Southern drawl - their adventures take them from planet to planet, encountering Amazons with a giant robot and cavemen. The final showdown takes them into battle with Zarth to save the universe...

So, a deliciously cheesy romp with cardboard sets and dodgy special effects. The story shamelessly plunders Star Wars for inspiration (as well as a few other films, the Amazons' giant robot is straight out of Jason & the Argonauts for example). The dialogue is often ridiculously banal and awkward. The acting, indifferent. The result is, somehow, superb.