Panic
Panic – 1982 – Italy/Spain
An experiment goes awry and a scientist is infected by a deadly bacteria. He degenerates into a freakish mutant and stalks the streets of a small Italian town. A corporation and the government try to conceal the accident. They quarantine the town and debate whether to kill all the inhabitants with nerve gas. A special agent for the military (named Captain Kirk of all things) is sent in to find and kill the mutant before the creature can spread its infection. He teams up with a sexy lady scientist, but surprisingly, they don’t hook up unless I fell asleep and missed it. In the end, the mutant is killed and the town is spared the horrors of nerve gas. After the credits, a message says, “What you have seen might really happen… Perhaps it already has.”
Followed Home
Followed Home – 2010 – United States
Four twenty-something friends rent a cabin at rustic Bear Lake in California. They flirt, make jokes, and play drinking games. Their fun is interrupted when a woman with multiple stab wounds staggers onto their porch, bleeds everywhere, and dies. The vacationers rush her to a hospital, but it is too late. The killer is not caught. Disturbed by this turn of events, the group of friends cancel their vacation. Back home, they suffer from depression and anxiety after the horrific happening. Each struggles to cope in their own way. Meanwhile the killer has followed them back and begins knifing and strangling them one by one.
The Wraith
The Wraith – 1986 – United States
In a small Arizona town, teen drag racers run amok. They have names like Skank, Rughead, and Gutterboy. They huff paint, molest girls, steal cars, commit murder, and generally act like pricks. One of their victims returns from the grave for revenge. He wears a futuristic jumpsuit, drives a futuristic car (the “Turbo Interceptor”), shoots a futuristic shotgun, and can transform into a comet. He seems like an alien invader, but actually he’s a ghost. The ghost challenges each of the drag racing gangsters and then kills them in head-on collisions. The police try ineffectually to stop him. There is a romance between the ghost and his old girlfriend. In the end, after exacting bloody revenge, the ghost turns human and gets another chance at life.
The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini
The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini – 1966 – United States
After a millionaire dies, his heirs congregate at his mansion for the reading of his will. The will reveals that all the money is hidden in the mansion and the heirs must find it. The millionaire’s crooked lawyer hires thugs to kill the heirs so he will inherit everything. Also at the mansion is a mischievous ghost girl (with an invisible bikini), some dopey bikers, and a busload of teenage surfers who just want to have a good time.
Xanadu
Xanadu – 1980 – United States
Sonny is a painter who paints enlarged copies of album covers to be used as advertisements. He’s too talented for his job and lets everyone know by complaining constantly. One day, he meets Kira—a mythological Greek muse who has been sent from Olympus to help him escape his rut. It turns out that Sonny and Kira both love rollerskating. Romance blooms. Meanwhile, Sonny befriends a rich jazz clarinetist named Danny who dreams of opening a nightclub. Sonny and Danny, inspired by Kira, open a roller disco nightclub called Xanadu. Everything works out.
Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma
Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma – 1989 – Japan
1573 Japan: On a mission for his clan, a young ninja named Hikage tracks his best friend (and fellow ninja) Marou across the countryside. Seemingly possessed, Marou attacked Hikage and now Hikage reluctantly must bring him to justice. But all is not as it seems. Marou is actually the reincarnation of the king of demons. Using his army of undead and yoma (monsters), he perpetuates a bloody conflict between two warlords. Maybe. The film’s plot isn’t very clear.
Legend of the Blue Wolves
Legend of the Blue Wolves – 1996 – Japan
In the year 2199, mankind has colonized the solar system. Using powered armor suits, they wage war against robotic alien invaders called the Apocalypse. Jonathan Tyberius and Leonard Schteinberg are mecha pilots and roommates on a military space station. When Jonathan is raped by his abusive (and morbidly obese) commanding officer, Leonard rescues him and castrates the rapist. Afterward, the two form a close bond which becomes a romance. Eventually, Leonard is sent on a mission and never returns, and Jonathan later encounters him on the battlefield. Leonard’s body has been absorbed into one of the invader’s biomechanical war machines and Jonathan must destroy it.
Lily C.A.T.
Lily C.A.T. – 1987 – Japan
A crew of thirteen scientists and engineers travel to a distant planet on behalf of some corporation. During the twenty year journey, they are in cryogenic sleep aboard a spaceship. While they rest, an alien bacteria infiltrates the ship. Upon waking, members of the crew die one by one as the infection enters their lungs and asphyxiates them. Soon, the bacteria transforms into a flowing mass of pincers, tentacles, and gaping maws. The body count escalates as the crew desperately searches for a way to destroy it.
Violence Jack
Violence Jack – 1986/1988/1990 – Japan
The Violence Jack series comprises three anime movies about the grisly exploits of Violence Jack. Jack is a giant man with giant muttonchops who (to quote the narrator) “arbitrarily dispenses death with the razor edge of a jack knife”. He might be a supernatural servant of Hell, but it’s unclear. Japan has been destroyed by a comet, and Jack wanders the post-apocalyptic wasteland chopping up giant bikers, giant mutants, and other Mad Max-style freaks.
Golgo 13: The Professional
Golgo 13: The Professional – 1983 – Japan
Golgo 13 is a legendary hitman with a perfect track record. Leonard Dawson is a Texas oil baron who targets Golgo 13 after he assassinates Dawson’s son. To do the job, Dawson hires the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon, and some demented assassins named Snake, Gold, and Silver. He wants Golgo 13 dead even if he must “destroy a few cities in the process”. He instructs his assassins, “Rip out [Golgo 13’s] brains and throw them on the floor!” While thwarting these killers, Golgo 13 travels to Sicily, San Francisco, and the Amazon. At various points, he is hired by a priest to kill a Mafia don, and a concentration camp survivor to kill an ex-Nazi. In the end, it is revealed that Dawson’s dead son himself hired Golgo 13 as an act of suicide. Dawson despondently leaps from a window, splattering gorily on the ground.
