The Hearse
The Hearse – 1980 – United States
Recovering from her recent divorce and the death of her mom, Jane decides to spend the summer in the “old family house”. She moves from San Francisco to her deceased aunt’s home in the isolated town of Blackford. Jane is a friendly lady with a good sense of humor, but none of that matters to the locals. The townies all hate Jane because her house is haunted and her aunt worshiped Satan. They vandalize her house, sexually harass her, and generally act like jerks. A mysterious hearse also tries repeatedly to run her over, and she starts having horrific nightmares. Jane manages to maintain a positive attitude and even starts dating a guy. Unfortunately, Jane’s new boyfriend is actually her aunt’s old boyfriend, an immortal Satan-worshiping warlock.
Angel Cop
Angel Cop – 1989-1994 – Japan
In the near future, Japan has the most powerful economy in the world. Red May, a group of communist terrorists, plots to destroy Japan’s financial institutions in order to collapse the world’s capitalist governments. The Special Security Force (SSF) is an elite Japanese anti-terrorist unit tasked with destroying Red May. Angel, SSF’s most badass agent, hates communists and has a total disregard for human life. Fighting against the SSF are diabolic psychics, cyborg supersoldiers, corrupt politicians, and American capitalists who want to transform Japan into a dumping ground for nuclear waste.
Darkside Blues
Darkside Blues – 1994 – Japan
In a horrific, gothic, dystopian future, the totalitarian Persona Century Corporation rules the world. The only remaining free people live like squatters in a decrepit Tokyo ghetto known as Darkside. A rebel group called Messiah joins forces with a ghostly stranger (also known as Darkside) to fight Persona Century. They never really accomplish anything because they are lazy and disorganized, and Persona Century is all-powerful. The rebels spend the entire movie protecting a fugitive terrorist from Persona’s legions of mutants, robots, and men-in-black. In the end, they fail and the fugitive dies.
Land of the Minotaur
Land of the Minotaur – 1976 – Greece
In a Greek mountain village, pagan cultists worship a fire-breathing statue of a minotaur. They dress like the Ku Klux Klan, and their brainwashed children sacrifice people in bloody rituals. When some tourists go missing, an Irish priest and an American private eye (actually the priest’s son) join forces to investigate. They eventually infiltrate the cult’s subterranean temple. The private eye, an atheist, ineffectually shoots the cultists, but they are apparently invulnerable. When the priest sprays holy water on their minotaur statue, the cultists explode into fiery gore.
The Girl from Rio
The Girl from Rio – 1969 – Germany/Spain
Jeff is a thief hiding out in Rio de Janeiro with 10 million dollars. While fleeing some mobsters, he winds up on a plane crewed by half-naked, vinyl-clad babes with assault rifles. They take Jeff to Femina, a militaristic, dystopian city where only women are allowed. These money-loving ladies have the hots for Jeff’s 10 million bucks. To get it, they torture Jeff with electric shocks and sexual teasing. It turns out that Jeff is actually a spy, and the stolen money was just a cover story to get him into Femina. He escapes back to Rio. Joining forces with his mobster enemies, he assembles an army and destroys the city of women.
House
House – 1986 – United States
Horror author Roger Cobb moves into his aunt’s creepy mansion to find solitude and overcome his writer’s block. Roger is a mess. He suffers from PTSD after serving in the Vietnam War, his son recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and he is still hung up on his ex-wife. Roger inherited his new house after his aunt hung herself. Of course, it’s haunted. Roger is attacked by flying gardening tools, a giant fat lady, demonic children, a blob made of screaming faces, and a taxidermied marlin. To defeat this house of horrors, Roger journeys into his own mind. In what might be a hallucination, he rescues his son from phantom Viet Cong soldiers and blows up the zombified corpse of one of his army buddies.
Hercules in the Haunted World
Hercules in the Haunted World – 1961 – Italy
Hercules’s wife Deianira has been cursed by an evil wizard. To cure her, Hercules and his horny buddy Theseus must retrieve a magic stone from the underworld. On their quest, they climb a giant tree in the Land of Eternal Night, fight a man made of stalactites, climb a rope across lava, and fend off flying zombies in a cave with moving walls. Most of that exciting stuff happens in the film’s first part. In the second part, Hercules and Theseus return to Greece and fight each other. Hercules is trying to end Theseus’ romance with Persephone, daughter of Hades. Apparently, their love will doom the world if it isn’t stopped. This part is kind of boring.
Cyber City Oedo 808
Cyber City Oedo 808 – 1990 – Japan
Cyber City Oedo 808 takes place in a 1980s-style cyberpunk future. The Japanese city of Oedo is an automated metropolis of multi-tiered highways and skyscrapers that touch the stratosphere. The movie follows three hardened convicts who work for the Oedo Cyber Police in exchange for reduced prison terms. One is a wise-cracking roughneck, another is a cyborg hacker, and the third is an androgynous martial artist. They wear explosive collars which their commanding officer constantly threatens to detonate for any reason. The three solve various cases and cause lots of violence and destruction.
Brain Twisters
Brain Twisters – 1991 – United States
In the name of science, a college professor subjects his students to psychedelic computer imagery that turns them into homicidal maniacs. When his students start committing murder and suicide, the professor has second thoughts about his experiments, but his self-serving corporate backers won’t let him quit. A police detective and a college girl join forces to investigate all the strange deaths on campus. It turns out that the experiments are being used to create video games that drive children insane. The movie never explains why anyone would bother to do this.
The Killer Shrews
The Killer Shrews – 1959 – United States
On an isolated island, scientists perform genetic experiments. Their ultimate goal is to prevent overpopulation by making humans smaller. Instead, they accidentally create a swarm of giant shrews. These wolf-sized killers eat three times their body weight every day and devour every piece of their prey but the teeth. They also shriek in an irritating way, burrow through walls, and have poisonous drool. The scientists, along with a beautiful Swedish woman, are cornered in a house by the shrews. A hardboiled sailor rescues them by improvising an armored vehicle out of oil drums. As the survivors flee the island, a scientist lectures the sailor about the dangers of overpopulation. While he makes out with the Swedish woman, the sailor replies, “You know something doctor? I’m not going to worry about overpopulation just yet.”
