Movieline Online

1994’s Bandit Queen is a punishing film. But it’s also a beautiful one. Which perhaps metaphorically explains the persistence of its main character, Phoolan Devi, whose life seems to be made up of one on torture after another, interrupted by only the briefest moments of joy. According to director Shekhar Kapur’s film, it’s a life many Indian women born into lower castes are forced to endure thanks to religious and social mores that equate the female gender on the same level as dogs and livestock. Based on the book India’s Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi , the movie doesn’t shy away from the graphic rapes, beatings and emotional scars, beginning with her forced marriage at the age of 11 to a 30-year-old man. Raped just days after her wedding, Phoolan flees from household, which marks her as a lower class whore into early adulthood by the higher-caste Thakurs. Exiled from her village, Phoolan crosses paths with a group of bandits living in the countryside. Rescued...

Arrow Video USA is making quite a statement with its first four titles released in North America. The company has a well-established reputation for delivering exquisite collector’s editions of cult and classic titles alike in European markets. But here in the States they’re competing with a number of niche entities with loyal fans of their own like Blue Underground, Shout Factory and Twilight Time. So, just like the first day of school, first impressions are important. And films like Massacre Gun , a Japanese noir-gangster entry from 1967, prove that the company isn’t going to succumb to peer pressure. Starring Jo Shishido ( Branded to Kill ) as weary middle-management gangster Ryuichi Kuroda, he begins the film by murdering the woman he loves. Although Kuroda pulled the trigger, he was following the orders of his boss, Akazawa. Things reach the breaking point when Kuroda’s brother, a boxer, has his hands crippled for speaking out, ruining his career. Push finally comes to shov...

Even though the company was struggling to remain relevant in the late ‘60s, Hammer Films still cast a long shadow upon the British film industry, particularly when it came to horror and exploitation features. Witchfinder General , produced by rival studio Tigon, made a splash in 1968 by pursuing a more adult audience and taking a less fanciful approach to its gruesome material. Mark of the Devil , shot in ’69 but unreleased until 1973 due to its graphic content, extrapolated all this to its most extreme – and extremely well marketed – conclusion. Shot in Austria by writer / director Michael Armstrong, who was pushed off the picture by producer Adrian Hoven, there actually is a plot amongst all the torture, rape, stabbing, flaying and stake burning…but it’s certainly not what earned the film its cult reputation. Mark of the Devil is a movie that knows exactly what its purpose is: to shock. And it still does that quite well 45 years later. Charged with cleaning house after the...

Rarely would a true cineaste ever listen to a commentary track before watching the film itself. But that’s something to consider when it comes to Blind Woman’s Curse , a Yakuza / samurai / ghost story that is so unconventional is helps to actually have someone describe what you’re watching! Director Teruo Ishii was one of the premiere film stylists of Japanese exploitation, often focusing on the macabre, grotesque and flat-out bizarre aspects of otherwise predictable genres. Case in point, this period yakuza release from 1970 which goes off the narrative deep end compared to similar action releases from the era, but does give star Meiko Kagi a dry-run as a tight-lipped professional killer, a role she would perfect in the Lady Snowblood and Female Convict Scorpion series a few short years later. Here she plays Akemi Tachibana, respected head of the Tachibana gang, fending off a pair of rivals encroaching on her family’s traditional turf. But even more troubling than that is her...

There are literally hundreds of Italian westerns still waiting for release on any home video format; most of them copycat productions that haven’t aged quite as well as the films of Leone, Corbucci and Sollima (the unofficial “holy trinity” of the Spaghetti Western genre). So one must approach any new title with a certain amount of trepidation, relying on the taste of cult film labels to pick the cream of the remaining crop. And Arrow Video USA nailed it right out of the gate with their first North American Blu-ray debut, Day of Anger (1967). Directed by Tonino Valerii, Leone’s early assistant director and co -director on 1973’s My Name is Nobody , the film falls into the “tutorship variation” narrative, with Lee Van Cleef as aging quickdraw artist Frank Talby who arrives in the small town of Clifton looking for a place to retire in comfort. But men like Talby aren’t able to hang up their guns easily, so he trains a lowly street sweeper, Scott Mary (Giuliano Gemma) to be his righ...

With the wealth of biographical attention lavished on Roger Corman over the past decade, it’s become obvious that his “do-more-with-less” approach to filmmaking is based less on circumstances than genetics. Even when blessed with the largest budget of his career and an entire back lot at his disposal, rumor has it Corman brought in his major studio debut – The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967) – under budget and days ahead of schedule. Old habits die hard…just like the unlucky victims in this recreation of the most infamous event of the gangster era. Using old photos and historical documents as a guide, Corman went out of his way to make the film as accurate as possible, even using a Paul Frees voice-over to introduce each major player as they pop up. While the effort is admirable – and miles away from the director’s usual exploitation story structure – it’s also needlessly complicated. So much so that it’s difficult to keep up with cast of characters since the script seems to g...

Although modern scientists surely have a clear picture of what’s going on in the center of the Earth, layer by meticulous layer, I bet none of them accounted for fire-breathing toads or telepathic birdmen. So until proven otherwise, I suppose there’s still a chance that Pellucidar, the cavernous kingdom created by Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs, is still waiting to be discovered. This 1976 film adaptation, At The Earth’s Core , (1976) was pretty juvenile stuff at the time of its release…and remains so today, thank goodness. Full of floppy rubber monsters, mushrooms the size of skyscrapers and cave girls who speak perfect English, director Kevin Connor was an old hand at this sort of escapist matinee fare, having already produced the similar Land Time Forgot and People Time Forgot . But the psychedelic color scheme and creative set design gives Earth’s Core a retina-searing edge over its competition. On a trial run of their new drilling machine, Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushi...

Movie stars are an endangered species. Especially those of the female persuasion, whose careers are often – unfairly – limited to how long they can remain visually appealing. And the brightest stars burn out the fastest. Case in point, Barbara Steele, the darkly luminous queen of Italian Gothic horror whose debut in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday led to a string of similar starring roles, including the latest to debut on Blu-ray: The Long Hair of Death (1964). Cast in dual roles once again, Steele plays the daughter of woman falsely accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake by command of a morally corrupt royal family. Despite trading her body for her mother’s life, both women are murdered, leaving a younger sister, Lisabeth as the family’s sole survivor. Years later, Lisabeth is forced to marry the very man responsible for her situation, Baron Kurt Humboldt, a spoiled, lustful thug who drags her to the altar. But supernatural forces tip the scales of justice as a mystery wom...