Mad Foxes (1981)

Original title: Los Violadores

Director: Paul Grau

Writers: Hans R. Walthard, Paul Grau, Melvin Quifiones, Jaime Sesus Balcazar

Composer: E-Flat

Starring: Jose Gras, Laura Premica, Andrea Albani, Peter John Saunders, Brian Billings, Hank Sutter, Garry Membrini, Ana Roca, Diana Miller, Irene Semmling, Mary-Ann Vaughn, Guillermo Balcazar, Eric Falk, Helmi Sigg, Paul Grau, Antonio Molino Rojo, Hans R. Walthard

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Furious Hell's killers carve out a bloody revenge in a vicious vendetta.

Plot: A man seeks revenge after a biker gang murders his family.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again?  YES!!!

EASY SPOILERS!!!!  YARRRRRR!!!!

This movie is off the fucking chain!  I first watched it alone and loved the shit out of it so much that I called a group movie night a couple of days later and we all had a friggin' blast!  This Spanish action revenge picture (and fortunately dubbed in English) is bizarre and violent as fuck.  It starts with Hal on the make with a young hottie on her 18th birthday.  On his way to his bar to get her liquored up so's he can bang her, at a stop light he's met with some nasty bikers.

They get into a chase, one of the bikers is killed by his own stupidity.  They split after giving him shit and Hal hits the bar scene.  Now the dialogue is ridiculous as is the dubbing.  It's so bad it's good territory.  It's the kind of thing where people say things that have nothing to do with the other as if to kill time like, "Springtime in France is lovely.  I like pants.  Are you trying not to be seen?".  At first it's just bad but it grows on you and suddenly you're in what the fuck territory and you're laughing your ass off. 

This is a regular dance club like disco and shit and then suddenly some swing tune comes on and it's literally one and a half minutes of this!

The fuck is that shit? If I had to edit anything out of this, this one scene would probably be it.  Now that Hal has his gal proper lubricated enough to leave they come across the bikers outside the club.

The girl is raped and they're both beaten pretty bad.  She's in the hospital.  He's bandaged up and makes a call to these guys...

Check out sexy in the window!  Hal gets his buddies to help kick some biker asses!

The next day Hal is home banging another chick and the bikers find out where the karate dudes hang out.  Then it's one of the most violent massacres you've ever seen.

It's bloody as hell and proves to be a real shocker.  Now this is where the spoilers end.  We're 24 minutes in with 52 more to go.  There are some scenes that drag the picture down just a little but that didn't bother me a bit because after these little breathers the film goes batshit violent.  It's campy, unintentionally funny, unpredictably violent and bloody.  There's also a good deal of nudity and that goes for the dudes, too.

And the ending will blow your mind.  I really want to talk about every single scene and back it up with pictures but that would take time away from watching another movie and it wouldn't be fair to spoil any more because you really need to see this for yourself.  It's a fantastic trashy movie that would best be served on the biggest screen you can muster up and have your friends over and the liquor flowing.  It's a real hoot.  Finding gems like this makes suffering through days and days of shit worth it.

HAPPY FUCKING THANKSGIVING!

A Serbian Film (2010)

Director: Srdjan Spasojevic

Starring: Srdjan Todorovic, Sergej Trifunovic, Jelena Gavrilovic

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Not all films have a happy ending.

Plot: In Serbia, the retired porn star Milos is married with his beloved wife Marija and they have a little son, Peter, that is their pride and joy. The family is facing financial difficulties but out of the blue, Milos is contacted by the porn actress Lejla that offers him a job opportunity in an art film. Milos is introduced to the director Vukmir that offers a millionaire contract to Milos to act in a film. However, Vukmir neither show the screenplay nor tell the story to Milos. Milos discusses the proposal with Marija and he signs the contract. But soon he finds that Vukmir and his crew are involved in some SICK FUCKING SHIT and they're making it increasingly difficult for him to back out.

My rating: 8.5/10

Will I watch it again? YEAH!

MAJOR FUCKING SICK-AS-SHIT SPOILERS!!!! DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU PLAN TO NEVER SEE THIS MOVIE OR WANT TO REMAIN FRIENDS WITH ME!!!

OK. Good. You're here. I've been hearing for a year how brutal this flick is, that it's one of the most repugnant films of the past two decades, that it goes where no other film has dared. Now those are some bold fucking claims, right? This is what I've been fed for a year so naturally my expectations and the anticipation is through the roof and you can see how I'm a little jaded and how I was left stunned that it didn't affect me as many led me to believe it would. I only know one person from my daily around town acquaintances that had seen it and she's been begging me to watch it. She loves the hardcore shit, the more fucked up the better, and she's disturbed by it...but somehow watching it twice. I know the shit she digs and for something to fuck her up like this has GOT to be all kinds of messed up.


Let's get to the picture or let's just get to the fucked up parts. For my money, the most disturbing shit came relatively early (maybe halfway through) when a man removes a baby from a pregnant woman (through natural childbirthing means, as you would in a hospital), slaps the baby's ass and then...fucks it. The screams of the baby are horrendous. I'm getting skeeved-out just thinking about it. How could it get worse? The mother looks on approvingly with a smile! That's the most fucked up thing I've ever seen in a movie. Ever. But wait, there's more.


There's a scene where Milos (keep in mind from this point to the end he's drugged up and being controlled) is fucking a woman doggie style and he's asked to hit her. His slapping her back soon turns to punches. Then someone hands him a machete and is told to hit her with that. He makes a few swings, removing her head. He continues to fuck the shit out of her decapitated body. But wait, there's more.


Near the end of the film there are two bodies lying prone and face down on a bed. Their bodies are covered with sheets and there are hoods on their heads. Milos fucks the larger of the two and then moves over to the smaller one. (I suspect you can see where this is going - we did) As he's mid-deed, a masked man stands next to him and fucks the larger one. When it feels like enough time has passed, one of the crew (of the film crew in the movie filming everything I've talked about) removes this guy's hood to reveal it's Milos's brother. They smile at each other. Then the hood comes off of the person the brother's fucking and it's Milos's wife. But wait, there's more.


Milos keeps fucking (the drugs play a large role, see) but he's clearly distraught. They remove the hood from the person he's fucking and it's his son. But wait, there's more.


Understandably, Milos goes bugnuts insane and gets very violent and kills the guy that's running the show. He might have killed some others but my mind was a fucked up and twisted mess at this point. He takes his wife and son home, lays them in bed with he and his wife facing inward toward each other with the son in the middle, takes a large caliber hand gun, reaches around his wife's back with the pistol pointing toward himself and pulls the trigger. It's positioned so the bullet goes through the three of them, killing them all simultaneously. But wait, there's more.


The camera stays on them for a couple of beats before pulling back to reveal two cameras on tripods, each with a man behind them, and one man directing. He tells one of the cameramen (who is already walking toward the bed, unzipping his trousers) to start with the small one. End...of...film.


That...was some fucked up shit right there. Wow. I'm beside myself. It's disturbing, sure, but it wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe. I'm not sure how this will hold up on repeat viewings. It's not like this is going to suddenly become my new Christmas tradition movie or anything but I am keen to give this one another spin someday. A SERBIAN FILM has a ton of shock value. It's the kind of shock that dares anyone to top it. I can respect that only because it's actually a competently made picture. If it weren't, it would be very easy to dismiss it as pure trash. I'm sandwiching this review between two Disney animated films for two reasons: 1) it makes me laugh at the absurdity of it all and 2) I kind of needed something on the extreme opposite of the movie spectrum to bring my ass back to normalcy. Well, at least a little closer to it.


There is a cut version and an uncut version. If you're ever going to see this, you're going to want to see the uncut version. You might as well go full fucked up rather than half fucked up. Either way, you'll probably be able to stand tall and prepare for some fun when someone asks you what the most fucked up movie you ever saw was. At least for the time being, you'll be able to proudly (or shamefully) say, A SERBIAN FILM. Gee, I hope I didn't lose any friends over this.

The Moonshine War (1970)

Director: Richard Quine

Starring: Patrick McGoohan, Richard Widmark, Alan Alda, Melodi Johnson, Will Geer, Joe Williams, Susanne Zenor, Lee Hazlewood, Bo Hopkins, Teri Garr

More info: IMDb

Tagline: 1932: The Moonshine War. The 18th amendment prohibited drinking. It didn't say a word about killing, double-crossing or blowing things up.

Plot: Frank Long, a Federal agent (McGoohan), comes to a sleepy Southern town looking to extort Son Martin (Alda) out of his rumored 150 barrels of top-notch moonshine. When Martin doesn't play ball, Long calls one of his gangster pals, Dr. Emmett Taulbee (Widmark), to lend some muscle only Taulbee wants it all for himself. The explosive finale leaves A LOT of people dead.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Nah. But if a nice widescreen print surfaces I might give it another go.

I really dig period pieces like this, set during the Great Depression, along with gangster movies and just about anything remotely interesting set during the 1930s. When you add this incredible cast AND that's it's written by Elmore Leonard, it's a sure bet that I'm going to watch it. So after watching pirates cavort for couple of hours I tossed this one in hoping for one of those "hidden gems". Nope. It's just watchable entertainment with some good and indifferent performances and an explosive finale that almost makes up for the film's shortcomings.


I'm a HUGE fan of Patrick McGoohan's after having watching more than half of his great early 60s spy show DANGER MAN (AKA SECRET AGENT) and THE PRISONER. With that and a few movies I've seen him in, he's a beast of an actor. In THE MOONSHINE WAR he uses one of his "nerdy spy voices" he used in DANGER MAN but this time with a Southern drawl that's only sometimes present (that happens with Widmark, too). If McGoohan had gone with his normal voice, still keeping the wandering accent, he and the picture would have been better served.


Widmark is great as the main heavy as is Hazelwood as his enforcer, Dual Metters. The rest of the cast does a great job, too, and there's a lot of familiar faces even if you don't know their names like Will "Grandpa from THE WALTONS" Greer and Bo "THE WILD BUNCH" Hopkins.

Meet Lee Hazelwood, the guy that wrote the Nancy Sinatra classic,
"These Boots are Made for Walking." Seriously.

Alan Alda is OK but his character doesn't get much set-up which hurts because he's the one guy we're supposed to root for. He's the underdog, the local boy the corrupt government official and the gangsters want. The problem is Son Martin doesn't get much in the way of character development in the first half of the movie. The movie starts and ends with McGoohan and it's mostly his picture, then Widmark and then Alda. I didn't feel like I knew enough about Alda to get behind him.


I can't believe I've gotten this far talkin' about this picture without bringing up that one of my top top 3 favorite actresses gets naked...sort of.

Put me down for the first person who NEEDS to own this on Blu-ray!!!
The quality of this doesn't give me enough detail.

The music was hokey. I could have done without Fred Karger's score. There's something about bass harmonica that doesn't work. I dig the instrument but it seems like it's rarely used properly. It's an instrument that dances that fine line of funny cliche and being serious. I'm not terribly sure how to describe it but there it is. The score had a goofy TV quality that didn't work sometimes.

The ending, though...WOW! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! LOVED IT! After you go through the standoff that takes up the final half hour, it's earned and fucking beautiful. Watch this if you want it spoiled...

This isn't nearly as strong of a movie as I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't going into this thinking it's the CITIZEN KANE of moonshine pictures. I guess I'm trying to say I was disappointed that, now that I've seen it, there was a lot of potential that wasn't fully realized. Is it mostly the director's fault this didn't work? Probably but considering the talent involved, I expected a little more. It's definitely worth watching if this sounds like your bag but lower your expectations a little and you'll walk away glad you checked it out.

Ice Cold in Alex (1958)

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Starring: John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Quayle, Harry Andrews

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They had to make it...even if one of 'em was a traitor!


Plot: A group of British Army personnel and nurses attempt a dangerous and arduous trek across the deserts of North Africa during WWII. The leader of the team dreams of his ice cold beer when he reaches Alexandria, but the problems just won't go away. One of them turns out to be a Nazi spy and they must all work together in order for any of them to survive the journey across countless hundreds of miles across a brutal and unforgiving desert.

WATCH THE TRAILER
(stupid YouTube for not allowing embed on this one)

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again? Oh, yeah!


Many months ago I was on a WWII movie kick that dealt specifically with the North African campaign. I think I watched a half dozen or more movies over the course of the week. Most of them were quite good. This was the last of that binge and certainly the best. ICE COLD IN ALEX is one of the finest WWII flicks I've ever seen. The acting by the four leads is superb and the location shooting looks magnificently hot and dangerous as hell.


Leighton Lucas delivers a fine score for this British adventure war drama. Enough can't be said about the performances. These men and women act their balls and ovaries off! J. Lee Thompson sure knows how to deliver tension. There are a couple of scenes (getting the truck up a steep dune, for one) that are absolute nail biters and when something happens that doesn't go their way, you're devastated.


The ending had me all choked up. Didn't see that coming. It's so well done that it should bring a tear to your eye. It's getting to me just thinking about it. In the two hours and nine minutes you spend with these people you really get to know them and like them. By the time their journey is over, you feel like you've been through some of it yourself. You've invested emotion in them and the payoff is beautiful. Unfortunately, it's still not available here in the U.S..

Sands of the Kalahari (1965)

Director: Cy Endfield

Starring: Stuart Whitman, Stanley Baker, Susannah York, Harry Andrews, Theodore Bikel, Nigel Davenport, Barry Lowe

More info: IMDb

Tagline: It's killed or be killed in the Sands of the Kalahari

Plot: A small plane crashes in the sweltering deserts of South Africa hundreds of miles from civilization. As parallels are drawn between the group of humans and a nearby pack of savage baboons, one of the men's survivalist nature gets the better of him, as he decides his chances of survival would be better if the others were eliminated one-by-one.

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY!


About a year ago I watched a crap fullscreen VHS rip of this on the recommendation of an Australian movie podcast. I was blown away. Even shitty pan & scan couldn't keep me from being riveted by this picture. It's never been released on DVD so you can image how I almost pissed myself when I found a great looking widescreen print floating out there somewhere. It didn't take a day or two of having it in my hands before I gave it a second go. Damn, this needs a proper release so it can find a new audience. It's a damn fine action/adventure/thriller and it's got one of the best endings I've ever seen. It's truly one of those, "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" yell out loud moments and it ain't pretty.


There are lots of great scenes but there's one in particular that says an awful lot about Brian, the man whose survival, animalistic tendencies take him down a dark, dark path. There are a lot of primal parallels between the humans in this story and their simian neighbors. Grace sees Brian as the strongest of the survivors, the hunter, the alpha male. She's very attracted to that and evolution dictates that she wants him...she needs him.

GRACE: It's not just anyone is it? Tell me you want ME.

BRIAN: [sighs] Ahhhh, not anymore, Mrs. Munkton.
I want what I haven't got and I've already got you.

The performances all around are great. The hopelessly endless desert landscape is frightening and harsh. That they're so close to the very dangerous baboons and there is a limited food source (fruits and vegetables) makes it even more tense. Stuart Whitman's decent to his primal self feels natural and believable. I won't spoil anything about the conclusion but I will say that there are few survivors. This isn't your typical 60s action adventure. This is brutal.



I watch about 250 or more movies a year. There's a good balance, I think, between the crap and the good-to-really-good stuff but I do come across a film every once in a while that burns itself into my memory as one I will champion for the rest of my days. SANDS OF THE KALAHARI is one of those films. That it has yet to make its way to DVD is a crime. You need to see this. I'm not saying it's going to be your new favorite but in an age where so much is available at your fingertips, it's almost a crime NOT to speak up when something so deserving is being neglected. Maybe it will make your top 100 favorite films but you won't know until you see it. It would be an interesting thing for me to come up with my top 100 and revise and compare that list every few years. It would be ever evolving.