exploitation

The name of this movie amply describes the reaction I had about 45 minutes in, and therefore sustained throughout the remaining runtime. Dear God No! showcases the danger of having fucking amazing cover art on your DVD or BluRay. This steaming pile of shit does nothing to justify how awesome its cover art is, which is what lured me in.

Another witchy/satan/black magic exploitation movie thats very thin on plot and acting but very stacked on nubile young beauties and gobbledygook. I mean, what does one expect going into this? The imagery is fantastic even if the cinematography is somewhat lacklustre and the lighting is appalling. The acting? Well, surely you know what you are getting yourself in for if you are interested in this kind of thing.

Nowadays, thanks to the wonders of technology, if you want to see Jane Fonda’s tits you can just do a quick Google search. Unfortunately for folk back in the 60s, it meant having to sit through absolute garbage like Barbarella. I’ve tried hard to find some merit in this low budget, camp as hell sci-fi romp. Truly, I have. Sure, its better than OG Star Trek, and watching Barbarella sleep her way across the galaxy…

Who’d have thought a sleazy sci-fi b-movie would include cast members that would go on to be in shit like Coronation Street? Yes! Welcome to the world of Inseminoid, a terribly low budget sci-fi horror where a female…. astronaut? Scientist? Whatever!? – Anyway she gets inseminated by alien semen and goes berzerk. Plot! The best thing about Inseminoid however is the acting, or lack thereof. The entire cast showcases a unified level of ineptitude that…

If you thought Toxie 2 was bad, I’d stay the fuck away from this. Patched together from footage taken in the same sessions as Part II, Part III makes no effort to conceal the fact that a lot of its plot makes absolutely zero narrative sense after the conclusion of the second movie. But hey, this is Troma, it is what it is. Toxie gets a job with the organisation he destroys in part 2…

You’d think things couldn’t get much worse than the original Toxie right? Ha! I am infinitely impressed by how low the bar has been set by this first sequel (I cannot begin to imagine 3 and 4) but nevertheless some odd part of me wants me to soldier on through. Apparently Troma acquired a bunch of funding from Japan so set this film there to appease those backers, which makes for some amusing scenarios (plus…

This is an absolutely stunning giallo movie (if one can use such a way to describe a movie of this nature), where the best tropes of the sleazy Italian genre are taken to create a sexy bright-red-blood fest of unexplainable deaths. The plot? Very, very sexy ladies are getting butchered by a mysterious masked assailant clad in leather. I won’t spoil the ending, but what a journey. Aesthetically mesmerizing, but plays out like a gory…

Basket Case is a bizarre low budget horror movie from the beginning of the sleazy 80s. I’m not sure if this would count as body horror (probably not), but the little monster in the basket (spoiler alert) has a very Cronenberg kinda feel to it, if just a little tackier. This movie seems infamous, and I suppose it is – with good reason – but I can’t help but point out my issues with pacing…

What in the holy mother of fuck did I just watch? Like, this is a mess. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I honestly don’t know. What starts as a slasher setting quickly devolves into a clusterfuck of Satanic rituals and insane plot twists. The plot can literally go fuck itself, but I have to commend this film on its gore, it’s cast (eyes are now firmly back in skull) and its…

I can’t decide whether the abnormality that is Class Of Nuke ‘Em High is either genius or hideously hideously bad. The plot suffers some pacing issues, for me I found it hard to stay focused during the first act (yes, even with all those nude “teens” lol) but the payoff comes towards the end. This is a Troma classic so I won’t go into the story itself, but it’s worth saying that the effects are…

This is a strange one. The movie starts off as one of the more depraved exploitation films I’ve encountered thus far; scene after scene of gratuitous nudity and horrendous violence towards women randomly peters out after half hour and the movie turns into this slow investigation / psychological piece. It is bizarre to see pretty much all of the slasher kills over and done with in one go, and honestly, it really effects the pacing…

The Arena is a mid 70s exploitation shit show featuring the excellent Pam Greer. The main girls are pretty decent (or at least funny) actors but the supporting cast are appalling. The plot makes literally no sense and the ending is absolute trash but there is something endearing about this awful movie. It has zero redeeming features but there is something about which has put a smile on my face, regardless. I think that probably…

Well this was just glorious. Eery yet hilarious from the outset, what this lacks in Cronenberg’s infamous body horror FX it makes up for with hilarious attitude and plot. A sexually promiscuous young woman and a scientist of sorts have brought an unstoppable parasite to a housing complex. Weird shit, and almost surrealist in some ways, I’m sure there’s a bigger message here that maybe I am missing. Nevertheless, there’s enough nipples showing through tops…

Having finally watching this uhhh… “movie” I can see why it remains unrated. Ilsa is essentially a porno, with dump trucks of full frontal female nudity, and even more horrendous torture and “snuff porn” in the way of nubile young beauties being put through a series of increasingly disgusting medical “trials”. It’s a tough watch, even for a seasoned gore or sexploitation nerd, but it’s definitely one for the history books. In my opinion it’s…

Someone needs to tell the director of this movie the importance of pacing. The 100 minutes or so of this film were some of the longest of my life. The plot is absolutely nonsensical, with the most asinine twists imaginable. Its a good thing really that you want the insufferable cast to all fucking die. That aside, Slave Of The Cannibal God is the usual concoction of cannibalism, tits and staged animal slaughter that comes…

Lucio Fulci’s swansong in the director’s seat, in which he bizarrely plays himself as he goes mad, unable to tell what is reality anymore after donkeys years of directing gore and exploitation. To top off his deteriorating mental state, people are starting to die gruesome deaths, and Fulci begins to suspect that he is the killer. Despite this awesome plot summary (and the fact that the BBFC wouldn’t rate it), this actually is a pretty…

The Dad from Home Alone (haha) leads a cast of Misfits through this entertaining but incredibly low budget mush. Nuclear waste is being dumped in the sewers of New York (honestly, that would explain a lot IRL) and the CHUDs have come to wreak havoc. Hilarious spots for me were noticing bit parts played by Commissioner Burrell and The Greek from HBO’s The Wire. 

I watched this around the same time as Sweet Sugar and therefore muddle them up in my head quite a lot. Honestly, it hard to tell which one is more morally wrong but this sleazefest, whilst a bit slow-paced, is very enjoyable. I mean, as far as the ‘women in prison’ subgenre of exploitation film goes, I genuinely don’t know what more one could expect from a movie of this kind. Arguably, Big Bird Cage…

This had absolutely everything you could want from a low budget slasher flick, but still managed to be completely awful. That aside, the laugh factor was surprisingly high and the gore FX attempts were admirable. I’m not sure if the actors here are just “friends” of the director, even most porn stars act better than the girls playing the strippers in this movie. I’m gonna say avoid this one. 

Well then… a decent film, with a stunning lead (how beautiful was Marilyn Chambers? Cool to see her here, I didn’t realise it was the same lass that was in that Green Door porno) but suffering with horrendous pacing issues. I enjoyed the story but was honestly bored for the majority of the film. A shame, considering the effects are pretty cool, and also considering the director’s reputation. I feel like the concept was all…

This terrible Troma-distributed title gets off to a promising start. However, it devolves rapidly from there and ends up being a total mess, and not in a good way. The practical effects are entertaining despite the budget, but I can’t say that this comes particularly highly recommended from me. I can only apologise as well for the horrendous cover scan on this one.

I guess the best way to describe this would be to say that it is Troma’s take on the Rambo era of War films. Beginning uncannily in the same fashion as the pilot (lol) episode of Lost, Troma’s War quickly descends into a jungle-fever drenched bullet fest, with a dashing of casual racism and exposed breasts for completions sake. Did I really care what the fuck was going on? No. Did I enjoy watching it?…

My quest through Romero’s …of the Dead series marches ever onward. Slowly I guess, like a shambling zombie. Land Of The Dead is a strong one, pitting the zombie apocalypse against a Mad Max kinda societal vibe. Some outstanding gore effects, but loses some points for a few patches of atrocious CGI (nothing makes me more flaccid, truly lol). Those of you who enjoyed the Tenpenny Tower subplot of Fallout 3 should resonate with this…

Ahhh, of course, following the success of the immeasurably grim Cannibal Holocaust, many others in the same vein quickly followed. The acting in Cannibal Ferox is absolutely atrocious, but I still found myself enjoying this movie. Scenes of animal deaths are hard work, but watching tribesmen kill and eat a turtle as they would in reality is far less harsh than most films that have stooped to this level for shocks. On the face of…

This one took a while to get going, but it was worth the wait. Sloshy, melty disgusting gore with some of the most hilarious effects I’ve seen for a while. Weird as fuck to see Larry Boy from The Sopranos acting here (it was his first feature), and I was head over heels in love with Jana Arakawa (despite her haircut haha), who has unfortunately not appeared in much else since.

A prostitute with a mouth fulla sass gets sent to a woman’s prison work camp where it turns out the guards are sadistic and the camp leader is “experimenting” on the women that work there. Queue all sorts of half-naked debauchery as the girls fight back and give the babyfaced freakazoid Dr. John (yes!) the runaround, with an absolutely insane ending. I haven’t personally for over half a decade, but it might be worth blazing…

Two young girls are snatched for a high-paying maniac who is in love with life-sized dolls. A shady biker gang, who is at first a bit skeptical of the idea, soon warms to the $10,000 asking price for the girls, and they quickly kidnap two young hotties from the city. However, despite the premise for all sorts of debauchery, nothing really happens. At all. There is a bit of back and forth between the bikers…

Commando Mengele, or Angel of Death is an 1987 action movie that is best completely forgotten about. This is one of those films which is totally devoid of action, suspense or anything of any real interest. The plot is fucking dire, the cinematography is just appalling, the acting is unspeakable. The only thing of any redeemable quality is the synthesizer soundtrack, and even that sounds like a cross between the soundtracks of a porno and…

Nightmare city is a decidedly average yet somewhat quite enjoyable zombie horror movie from the 80s. It tells the story of a radioactive army plane returning from an unknown destination, bringing with it an army of crazed undead. As unfortunate for the viewer as it is for the victims trying to escape in near slow motion, the pacing of this feature is somewhat dire. This even makes the most chaotic or gory scenes seem boring…

Quite possibly the worst (best?) film I have seen thus far. I mean, wow, this is bad. This is about a bunch of rival gangs vying for control of the beach now that the police are off the scene due to a massive earthquake or some shit. I don’t really know where to begin. Honestly. I need a moment… Shocking acting on all fronts, except Dawn Wildsmith as Eva, who is probably the most enigmatic…

Billed as Full Moon Of The Virgins on Amazon Prime, and known as The Devil’s Wedding Night to most of the world, this fantastic Italian horror movie can comfortably join the Low Budget Movies With 9000 Different Names Club. I’ll go with the original title, Il Plenilunio Delle Vergini, even though I have absolutely no real fucking clue on how to correctly pronounce it. Il Plenilunio Delle Vergini is brilliant. I loved every second of…

This has been on the back-burner for me for quite some time; the film’s sordid reputation initially drew me to it, but its fans pushed me away. “Man, some guy totally rapes a baby, hurr hurr hurr, sick, bro”. A Serbian Film has become a piece of work that has become known for its graphic content, and not for its “artistic” vision or even for its plot, which is fine if you want to wear…

This has to be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. I love watching awful movies (that is the whole point of this venture!) but this just fails to entertain. I mean, in all rights it should; it’s a tale about a boy (?) called Sukeban who looks like a girl so he goes to a girls school, dressed – rather convincingly – as a girl. There he meets a whole array of bizarre…

Man Bites Dog is a bizarre “noir-mockumentary” in which a young film crew follow a charismatic and disturbingly chipper serial killer who goes by the name of Ben. Black humour is served by the truckload as we document Ben as he kills victims, eats mussels, visits his gran and generally waxes lyrically on subjects of his choosing. At first, the violence is jarring, but as we enter Ben’s world, it starts to become more and…

Oh my days, what a film! Haha! This is absolute, total trash, in the best possible way, and my first introduction to the world of J-sploitation (surely Japsploitation would be better?). As the title might suggest, the film focuses on a deadly carnivorous parasite that nests inside the vagina of its female human host. It also seems to be able to possess control of whoever it is currently inhabiting. It is never clarified whether or…

I primarily checked out The Astro-Zombies because of The Misfits track which shares the same (or very similar) title. This film is, in a word, terrible. The pacing is excruciating, and when anything does happen, it is so badly acted out that it is just laughable, and not in a good way. The plot is paper thin, and the “Astro-Zombie” scenes are incredibly hammy. The titular “Zombie” is just some dude in a plastic mask….

Welcome to the first LIW film post! In the seemingly endless recent downtime I have been thinking of ways to expand on and better this site and incorporating TV/film-speak into the goings on here seemed like the next logical step. LIW started in 2011 as a vinyl-only blog and initially grew to cover CD and cassettes. In 2014, it became “format free”, covering music regardless of format or whether I owned a physical copy of…

A slow start, but it eventually unfurls into the debauched genius that its reputation promises it will be. The acting is absolutely atrocious, but the final act as it were, well that makes up for it all entirely. The real question, though: is it better than Lord Of The Rings? I’m going to say yes! LOL