Author Archive: Retro

In this Italian costume epic chronicles the exploits of an innocent maiden who lives near Thebes. She is in love with a sculptor but cannot marry him when a high-ranking reveals that he is her father and that she was betrothed at birth to a mentally ill prince slated to soon take over the country. The father then hands down a death sentence for the sculptor, but fortunately he escapes to find the prince, who happens to be a friend of his. There he asks for and is granted a pardon. Time passes and the prince becomes king; meanwhile, the maiden undergoes a ritual purification and changes her name to “Nefertiti.” The sculptor is now with a gypsy. Unfortunately, he is again imprisoned by Nefertiti’s father who threatens to kill him unless his unwilling daughter marries the new king. After the wedding, the sculptor does a bust of his beloved, and she tells him that [...]

Mobsters conspire to loot another criminal’s treasure secured in an enormous booby-trapped vault.

All the insects on Earth become wild and attack humans, causing Armageddon.

Arthur Milton aka Der Hexer (The Magician/Ringer) must return to London after his calling card was left at the scene of a murder he did not commit.

Paul Naschy plays a hunchback with below average intelligence who works at the morgue. He is in love with a sickly girl who happens to be the only person who is kind to him. Each day he brings her flowers until the day she dies. He never really accepts her death and believes she is just sleeping. The girl eventually ends up at the morgue where she is being prepared for burial. Naschy’s character flips out at the desecration of the girls body and stabs and decapitates the men in the only scene of gore in the movie. The police begin to look for him. This is when the Hunchback meets up with a mad scientist who’s work isn’t accepted by the general society. The scientist promises the Hunchback that he would re-animate the girl’s body if the Hunchback brings him fresh bodyparts from the graveyard and live victims. He uses the parts to create [...]

In a dilapidated rural mansion, the last generation of the degenerate, inbred Merrye family lives with the inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress from the age of 10 or so on as they physically develop. The family chauffeur looks out for them and covers up their indiscretions. Bizzare murders occur as relatives and their lawyer arrive to dispossess the family of its home. Ed-Woodian Cult Classic.

Maverick sexploitation filmmaker Doris Wishman’s 1965 cheapie Bad Girls Go to Hell is a sexual nightmare that unfolds with the insouciance and inspiration of a child’s drawing. A comic-book variation on Sade’s Justine, it’s the tale of Meg Kelton (a darkly Monroe-like GiGi Darlene), a sexually neglected Boston housewife who must flee to New York after she accidentally kills the janitor who raped her. There her melancholy innocence is violated, again and again, as she is taken in by seeming Good Samaritans only to be exploited by leering, lecherous men and women.

Filming in glorious and gritty black and white, offers us the beautiful and talented Gigi Darlene as an everywoman in 1960’s urban America suffering the birth-pains of the sexual revolution. Take a peek at this, if you ever get the opportunity, to see an example of the art that influenced pulp film-makers of the 1960’s and 1970’s, John Waters, and many musicians [...]