HELL NIGHT (1981)

I have a sweet spot for HELL NIGHT.  Ever since I saw first saw it on late night cable as a kid and it scared the shit out of me. Watching it now as grown man with a hairy chest, a 15 pound dick and urine that can burn it's way through an iceberg made out of lead, HELL NIGHT seems very tame in the violence department, but it still manages to create a lot of suspense thanks to the filmmakers using the novel idea of creating characters that the viewer actually like! Unlike most slashers where the characters are so annoying they can't get killed fast enough (I'm looking at you SORORITY ROW and LAID TO REST). The entire look of the film is very pleasing with an awesome spooky mansion, excellent lighting and all of the victims dressed in old-timey clothing.

The plot: four pledges trying to get into a college fraternity have to spend the night in a vacant mansion where a family was murdered 12 years ago. Naturally, the frat dudes have set up some pranks to scare the pledges, but shit soon hits the fan when people start getting killed for realz!

Fun movie, but I would like to complain about the small number of victims. With only a total of 7 people inside the mansion there's not going to be a lot of action and that's where HELL NIGHT falls short. The suspense and buildup are great, but I would have liked it much better if there had been more people involved. It would have been awesome to see the pledges trying to turn the tables on the frat people then having the frat people and the pledges join together against the killers for the big bloodbath at the end. Just a thought. Also, some quality nudity and gore would have been nice. As it is though, HELL NIGHT if a fun lightweight 80's slasher.  Recommended for sure.

True story: I was watching this film once at a friend's house when his very young son came walking in the room.  It was towards the end where the bad guy was chasing everybody around and my friend's kid was on the verge of freaking out when I told him not to worry because that is just the Hug Monster and all he wants is a hug, but the the other people don't want a hug from him because he's so smelly.

S&M HUNTER (1986)

While doing some research about Yutaka Ikejima, the director of THE JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR, I came across this 1986 shocker about a gay dude who's boyfriend has been kidnapped by an all female high school gang and forced to have sex with them against his will. The gay guy is desperate so he enlists the help of "S&M Hunter" to rescue his boyfriend. S&M Hunter is a friendly sadist who, faster than a blink of an eye, can tie up a woman and give her pleasure she didn't even know was imaginable. What he doesn't know is the newest member of the gang is the girl who knocked out one of his eyeballs in their last fight. She also dresses up like a Nazi SS officer for some unknown reason.

At only an hour long there's no time to bullshit. It's all action and sex the entire movie with only the barest amount of time spent on talking, but even then it's hilarious cause they say some crazy shit. I enjoyed S&M HUNTER a lot. The comic part were very funny, but I do have to complain that none of the girls were above averagee, so that really put a damper on the sex scenes.

I'm not sure if it's worth buying, but if you can find a copy to rent it's definitely worth watching. I was especially pleased at the seriousness to the two gay characters. It's rare to see a exploitation movie from the 1980's where the gay characters weren't treated as a joke.

THE JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR (2004)

[Update 02/21/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

At a company mixer a guy meets an attractive young woman. They start seeing each other and six months later they get married and she moves in with his family...then the truth comes out: she's a raging nymphomaniac who cannot be satisfied. He tries and tries until finally he becomes impotent from the stress of all the nonstop fucking. He starts spending more hours at work and in her sexual frustration she seduces the entire family! Now his dad, the sister and grandpa have all become sex maniacs who want to do nothing more all day than stay at home and fuck his wife!

The running time for this little gem is only an hour, but it is packed to the gills with sex, nudity, insanity and funny moments.  I think the thing I like most about this movie, besides the humor, is the sex scenes are actually sexy! Yea, the idea of a woman seducing an entire family is perverse, especially when they're gang-banging, but from a clearly physical standpoint the sex scenes were fucking hot with interesting positions and spirited performances. This movie looks like it was a lot of fun to film. Also, it never delved into the lower depth's like Miike's VISITOR Q or Pasolini's TEOREMA (although the grandpa jizz scene was pretty disturbing), instead it just stayed light-hearted the entire movie.

I don't know much about the director Yutaka Ikejima, but I was very impressed with this outing.

Part 2 - The Japanese Wife Next Door Part 2 (2004)

I've never seen an audio commentary done like this before, but it's actually brilliant and I really enjoyed it.

SPANKING LOVE (1995)

I watched this years ago and I guess I'm a masochist myself cause here I am watching it again and you know what? I actually liked it alright this time around. It's still too long, there's not enough nudity and the story is kind silly, but it was entertaining in a late night cable softcore S&M kind of way.

A director of adult films is scheduled to make a whipping video, but at the last moment his female talent bails so now he desperately goes out on the street and asks a passing girl if she'd be in the video. She agrees and when the video catches the eye of a local masochist rich dude (played by Renji Ishibashi) he will stop at nothing to get her to perform at his club because he can see in her eyes that she is a "true sadist"...or something like that. It's all too confusing for it's own good. I seriously doubt anybody who rents something called SPANKING LOVE is looking for a story. They're probably looking for some kinky spanking shit to go down. Well, they're going to be disappointed cause despite the subject matter there's only a limited amount of nudity and none of the S&M shit is erotic at all. The main scene at the beginning actually had me giggling cause the dude doing the whipping gets so fucking wound up he actually misses the girl a lot and ends up just beating the crap out of an old mattress!

The main satisfaction I got out of the movie was watching Renji Ishibashi completely throw himself into the role including multiple shoe licking scenes and even making out with another dude!!! That turned my stomach a little seeing he tongue zipping in and out of the other dudes mouth but whatever.

Good for a laugh, but not a jack. Watch THE JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR instead.

Renji Ishibashi kissing another dude!!!