THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)

1914. Katharine Hepburn and her brother are missionaries in Africa. They've been there for 10 years, living a peaceful existence with the natives (brainwashing them in exchange for food and shelter) when suddenly German soldiers come marching in, round up all of the villagers and burn everything to the ground! It seems that a huge War has started and they didn't even know anything about it. Katharine's brother is beaten and soon dies from his wounds. A few hours after her brother's death the guy (a scraggly Humphrey Bogart) who delivers supplies and the mail shows up on his ragged little boat. Naturally he takes Katharine with him and she, being furious with the German, takes over Bogart's life and insists that they travel many miles down the river through rapids and wild animals and solders and countless other dangers in order to make his boat into floating bomb and crash it into a giant German ship that's protecting the river opening!!!! Holy fuck! That's some crazy shit, but Bogart has a severe case of blue balls so he agrees.

The story is interesting, but the main attraction here's the two leads. Bogart and Hepburn are great and both turn in some of the very best performances of their careers and that's really saying something! Especially Bogart, some of Bogart's facial expressions are just perfect. He captures this role to the point that I cannot even think of somebody else doing it. Thinking of somebody else in this role is like thinking of Indiana Jones played by Bud Kort.

My one small complaint is the ending was too abrupt. There was a lot of action and BAM!!! it's over, get the fuck out of the theater. That happens a lot with older films, but still I wish there bad been just something small at the end to kinda give you an indication of what might happen next. If you like exciting classic cinema then I say check it out.

NEKROMANTIK (1987)

NEKROMANTIK is a justifiably infamous film and even though it's 30+ years old it's still pretty messed up. Younger, first-time viewers though (jaded from all the fucked-up shit on the internet), will probably find the whole thing cheesy, cheap-looking, slow and nowhere as violent as they had expected.  Dated or not, I actually liked the film and honestly think that it deserves, at least, a footnote in The History of Cinema.

Our hero, Rob, is a pathetic loser who's employed cleaning up accidents and crime scenes. Being a deviant freak, he pockets small odds and ends of humans (eyeballs, fingers, etc.) and takes them home to his disgusting apartment and his horrible girlfriend.  She doesn't seem to like Rob, but instead uses him to feed her sick desires of bathing in blood and humping random body parts. One day, Rob makes a huge score and brings home an entire dead body! The two of them, happy as pigs in shit, start making out and fucking the putrefied corpse.

Things take a turn for the worse at his job and he's fired. So now that her supply has dried up, his girlfriend shows her true colours and runs off with the corpse! Dumped for a dried-up corpse, that's gotta hurt. Rob's depressed over the whole thing so [SPOILERS!!!] he kills a cat, bathes in its entrails, watches a shitty slasher movie then kills a few people and fucks a corpse before he stabs himself while popping a boner and shooting a geyser of jizz and blood all over the joint. [END OF SPOILERS!!!]

Interesting film and one of the highlights of 80's cult cinema. Worth at least one viewing.  You might recognize some of the audio since it was used in the Nine Inch Nails song "Reptile".

NSFW images

Part 2 - Nekromantik 2 (1991)

THE HITLER TAPES (1994)

At only 55 minutes THE HITLER TAPES kinda seems like a bunch of clips of a movie that was never finished...and that might actually be true since I read that the lead actor was murdered the same year this came out!

Lonely dork Marcus Templeton wears a bandage on his head and mentions that he'd been shot by a call girl. He's unable to get an boner, he sometimes pisses himself and he spends all of his money on hookers and phone sex. They come over and he films them taking a shower or playing with their tits. He even tries to score with a few, but they just complain that his dick is all soft and mushy. Most of these events and his adventures into being a peeping tom are told with audio or video recordings that he sends to his favorite phone sex chick. That's the entire movie.

The budget is super low, I'm talking probably just a few hundred dollars, but the direction and the acting are better than I would have expected. I really can't recommend it since the story never really goes anywhere, but I did like the movie for what it was.

Part 1 - Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend (1992)

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1991)

The Spanish Inquisition was one of the most horrible periods in human history and for a low budget 90's flick THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM does a pretty good job of capturing (at least on a small scale) that period's awfulness and perversion of power.

Spain 1492, a innocent baker and his wife get caught up in a crowd of people rushing to see a witch burned. They don't want to be there, but when they try to leave they are forced back. The baker's hot wife shows sympathy for the accused witch and in doing so is arrested for witchcraft herself. Once inside the prison the Grand Inquisitor (played perfectly by Lance Henriksen) falls into his perverse version of love with her and starts acting even crazier than he already was! Outside the prison the baker is desperate to save his wife so he finds a way to sneak into the prison. I won't give away anymore, but it's pretty exciting and a lot of fun to watch.

Like I said, this is a low budget film so the sets aren't the greatest and the special effects are a little weak, but don't let that scare you off cause the story is compelling and the cast is pretty impressive: Lance Henriksen, Jeffery Combs, Oliver Reed, Mark Margolis, Frances Bay and Tom Towles. Also, the director is the guy who made DAGON, FROM BEYOND and RE-ANIMATOR.

Check it out!