Rock's Cheapo Theatre of the Damned

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The tagline is accurate to the letter, but not the spirit, of the story.
Also, the majority of what's on the poster doesn't happen in the movie. But I suppose you can't get asses in seats with old lady birdwatchers and a kid giving the finger.



That last page was the classiest this thread will get, btw. It's all downhill from here, folks.



Now I'm really hoping there's no axe in that movie.
There is an axe in the movie. But are there skulls? You'll have to watch to find out.



But are there skulls?
With lasers? *sip*



Also of note is this awesome but wildly misleading poster for the movie.


Never forget!



The poster I saw for Virgin made it look like porn. Possibly because of the title. "Virgin Among the Living Dead" - eurosleaze movie that is a lot less sleazy than what you'd think!


Also glad you got to the Deadly Spawn. I think you responded to a lot of the same things I did when I saw it. It's like everything that resembled tropes in other movies are just different enough in the right way that they don't feel like tropes.



If you could get around to watching Jack the Ripper with Kinski and tell me how you feel about it. It was my first Franco and in my memory I can't figure out if it's good or meh.



If you could get around to watching Jack the Ripper with Kinski and tell me how you feel about it. It was my first Franco and in my memory I can't figure out if it's good or meh.
I ordered a few Francos from the Full Moon site but passed on that because it doesn't seem to be well liked on my Letterboxd circle. Might give it a shot later on, though.


(I actually wanted to order just one, Doriana Gray, but I was gonna get hit with a 40 USD shipping fee, so figured I outta grab a few others.)



Which ones did you order?
It's amazing and appropriate how much his movies blur together in my memory.


Ordered these from Uncle Jess:
Doriana Gray aka Marquise De Sade
Barbed Wire Dolls
Women in Cellblock 9



And these from Uncle Joe (D'Amato):
Crazy Nights
Emmanuelle and the White Slave Trade


These were like 8 USD each. If you're in the US, shipping might be more reasonable than it was to Canada.


I also recently picked up She Killed in Ecstasy and have Vampyros Lesbos and The Hot Nights of Linda on the way from Severin. Ecstasy and Lesbos I've seen before but might rewatch during the month.


I also found Oasis of the Zombies on YouTube, and will very likely give that a viewing against my better judgment



Women in Cellblock 9
Out of the genre, I haven't seen many, but I'd recommend 99 Women, because it has Herbert Lom as the warden, always a plus, and a solid cellblock of favorites like Maria Rohm, Rosalba Neri and Luciana Paluzzi. There's worse women in prison films, is what I'm saying.


have Vampyros Lesbos and The Hot Nights of Linda on the way from Severin.
Severin, Severin. Taste the whip in a love not taken lightly.



*adds to watchlist*


My experience with WIP films is pretty limited. I remember enjoying The Big Doll House, probably should get to some of the others Jack Hill did in the genre at some point. And the porno Desperate Women felt closer to the real deal than I expected (not hard given the usual production values in the genre, tbh) and featured Sharon Mitchell doing a terrible Hispanic accent, so I enjoyed that one as well.



Zombie Lake (Rollin, 1981)



Jean Rollin's Zombie Lake is about a lake full of zombies. The end. Okay, that's not all. During World War II, a German army unit was killed by the French resistance and had their bodies dumped in a lake. (Full disclosure: having grown up watching movies like The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare thanks to my dad, I have an almost Pavlovian positive reaction to World War II stuff in movies. Get some guys in era-appropriate uniforms, fire off a few rounds, a couple of explosions and there's a non-zero chance I'm doing some serious internal hooting and hollering.) Several years later, they've risen from their watery graves and are now exacting bloody vengeance on the locals. Of course, it turns out one of them, the only sympathetic one of the bunch, fathered a child with a local woman, which certainly complicates things. A mayor, played by Jess Franco regular Howard Vernon, takes Murray Hamilton's character in Jaws as a model and tries to brush off the situation, but eventually the problem becomes too big to ignore.

From my experience, this tends to be called one of Rollin's worst movies, and from the plot description, it doesn't sound much like a typical Rollin joint. Indeed, Rollin was brought in to direct after Franco left the movie early on. Yet the incongruity of his style to the material played a big role in my enjoyment. Rollin's direction tends to be characterized by a delicate, low key sensuality, which is a natural fit for movies about sexy vampires in the nude, but an ungainly one for lumbering, decaying zombies, but that dissonance adds to the tension. These zombies simply don't belong here, and clash heavily with the earthy textures and overcast skies of the French countryside, which I think parallels the narrative in how the French locals are trying to bury the past yet are beholden to the legacy of the Second World War. It's not an especially forceful dynamic, as Rollin isn't an especially forceful director, but there's enough here for the movie to have carried a bit of dread and even excuse the uselessness of the Vernon character. (I've liked Vernon elsewhere but suspect he might have gelled less to Rollin's direction than Franco's. Would the movie have been better with a Rollin regular in the role? Get Brigitte Lahaie as the mayor, and there's a non-zero chance I'm doing some serious internal hooting and hollering.) And with the one sympathetic zombie and his relationship to his child, this also anticipates The Living Dead Girl and its poignancy about the undead condition. This isn't quite as effective as it doesn't have any performances as good as Francoise Blanchard and Marina Pierro in the other movie, but with Antonio Mayans, another Franco regular, as a zombie, you do get some actual acting in these parts.

Of course, one must note that this isn't terribly effective as a traditional zombie movie, mostly because the zombies wear Namekian green makeup and Rollin has no great enthusiasm for splatter. And fans of Rollin's elegant delivery of the prurient elements in his other movies might be disappointed at the perfunctory nude scenes here, with the Jaws-inspired opening scene and the introduction of a female basketball team who decide to go skinny-dipping. I am shamefully easy to please and could look past these shortcomings. Now if one is interested in seeing what Franco's original vision for the movie might have looked like, Oasis of the Zombies might merit a gander. It takes its Nazi zombies and transplants them to North Africa, throwing in a plot about buried treasure. (A key to grasping their different flavours is through the use of music. Rollin's scoring feels wistful and familiar while Franco's emphasizes the exotic, which reflects the milieus and atmosphere of their respective movies.) I understand for years that it's been one of Franco's most easily available movies, and also considered one of his worst, but truth be told I enjoyed it as well. Zombie Lake is a better movie in most conventional ways, but Oasis, thanks to Franco's comparative disinterest in the plot and characters, periodically locks into a somnambulist, medicated wavelength and gets great mileage out of its setting. I watched it while contemplating and deciding against a nap, which is probably the right state of mind to enjoy the movie. (Franco left Zombie Lake after fighting with producers, and I'm curious as to what his grounds for leaving were. At a glance there's no great gulf in artistry or compromise between the two films, but it's possible Franco's working methods might have been less easily accepted than Rollin's.) I should note that it has even sorrier looking zombies and its style is less fluid than most of the others I've seen from Franco, but if you can bask in the desert atmosphere and try not to worry too much about all its shortcomings, you might get some enjoyment out of it.