NetFlix: SHE (1983)

Director: Avi Nesher

Cast: Sandahl Bergman, David Goss, Harrison Muller Jr., Gordon Mitchell, Cyrus Elias, David Brandon, David Traylor and Nello Pazzafini!

Plot & Notes: Allegedly based on H. Rider Haggard's adventure novel, which is one of the best selling novels in modern literature, by way of a fever-dream brought on by spicy sausages and blotter acid. A couple of sword-wielding post-apocalyptic adventurers set out to rescue a kidnapped sister and run afoul of She the leader of a city of women who is at war with Hector, leader of a viscous gang of wasteland marauders called the Norks. Got it? Ok, now you can just forget all that, place a pillow at your feet and let your jaw hit the floor. 

I remember my friends and I being all excited about seeing the film back when it came out. Sandahl Bergman + Sword = Awesome, right? Oh man, we had no idea what we were in for. Minds were blown that night.

Print Version: Remastered, widescreen and uncut!

Status: Released on VHS way back when, never on DVD in the US.

SHE (1983) on NetFlix

Full Review on Video Junkie

If you are going to have a robotic Frankenstein Monster attack,
might as well have it's head explode.

WtF is this guy doing anyway?

NetFlix: THE DEVIL WITHIN HER (1975)

Director: Peter Sasdy

Cast: Joan Collins, Eileen Atkins, Donald Pleasence, Ralph Bates, Caroline Munro, Hilary Mason, John Steiner

Plot & Notes:  Terror grips the screen in this horror film about stripper Lucy Carlesi (Joan Collins), who regrets repulsing the advances of a lecherous dwarf after he curses her unborn children. Months later, her newborn son is a vicious monster possessed by the devil. When the beastly babe causes several murders, Lucy and her baffled husband (Ralph Bates) turn to Dr. Finch (Donald Pleasence) and an exorcist nun, Sister Albana (Eileen Atkins), for help.

Very rare ROSEMARY'S BABY knock-off, not to be confused with BEYOND THE DOOR (1974), which was also released as THE DEVIL WITHIN HER. Granted it's not the greatest movie about satanic possession ever, but it's definitely a curiosity (c'mon, Joan Collins as a stripper?!) and the obscurity of this film is made all the more mystifying by the fact that it has a name cast and a well known director.

Print Version: Remastered and widescreen.

Status: Released on VHS, long OOP, never on DVD.

THE DEVIL WITHIN HER (1975) on NetFlix

NetFlix: DERANGED (1974)

Director: Alan Ormsby

Cast: Roberts Blossom, Cosette Lee, Leslie Carlson, Robert Warner, Marcia Diamond, Brian Smeagle, Arlene Gillen, Jack Mather

Plot & Notes:  A virtually flawless horror film with Roberts Blossom turning in a top-notch performance as Ezra Cobb, Butcher of the Woodside; a quiet farmer who has a hidden secret of maternal worship and spare body parts in his 'fridge. Tom Savini delivers the grue, which is quite good for a low-budget '70s film. Probably the most faithful of all of the Gein flicks. So disturbing is Blossom's performance that he actually refused to speak about it in interviews right up until the day he died.

Print Version: Remastered and widescreen, US theatrical version (missing some of the gore from the unrated VHS tape and overseas prints).

Status: Released on VHS & DVD, now OOP.

DERANGED (1974) on NetFlix

NetFlix: THE BLACK CAT (1989)

Director: Luigi Cozzi

Cast: Florence Guérin, Urbano Barberini, Caroline Munro, Brett Halsey, Luisa Maneri, Karina Huff, Alessandra Acciai, Giada Cozzi

Plot & Notes: NetFlix + Cozzi?! Crazy awesome!

Argento collaborator Luigi Cozzi decided to finish what Argento (at the time) couldn't: the final entry in the Three Mothers trilogy. SUSPIRIA, INFERNO and... THE BLACK CAT. Sure, makes sense. In a bizarre, sprained brained Luigi Cozzi kinda way. The basic premise is centered around possession and mayhem during the production of a cheap horror movie (they say to write about what you know, right?). Dance studios, now movie set, sure, yeah, whatever. This is Cozzi in, err, fine form using Argento's tinkling bells, surreal primary colors and lots of gooey latex effects. Marketed as being based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe! I must have read the abridged version of that story.

Print Version: Remastered and uncut, but full frame.

Status: Released on VHS overseas, never in the US.

THE BLACK CAT (1989) on NetFlix