Trash Menagerie

  Dir. Pierre B. Reinhard Three young women in the French countryside die suddenly after drinking poisoned milk from a batch sabotaged on the back of a transport truck. Events start to unfold in plots of corporate blackmail, pollution, and embezzlement at the the local milk plant as the plant manager scrambles to avoid a scandal. Soon bodies start to pile up as the poisoned women are reanimated by the plant’s toxic waste, rising to take revenge on the corporate snakes whose greed has taken their lives...or so we think. Helmed by pornographer Pierre B. Reinhard, Revenge of the Living Dead Girls is an incredibly horny movie. There are at least four sex scenes, only one of which really drives the plot in any way. Everyone is fucking and cheating on each other. There’s a scene that goes on for about a minute after it should have ended so that one of the main characters can take off her sweater and play with her breasts for no one’s benefit but the audience. The movie also manages to o...

Dir. Andrea Bianchi Bimba’s in trouble. In a gothic castle, her family has conducted a seance to try to contact her dead mother, accidentally releasing the spirit of a dead relative that finds its way into Bimba’s body. As Bimba begins to act out in a series of escalating naughty behaviors, it’s up to Sister Sofia, the family’s resident nun-in-training to free Bimba from the curse and save her soul from eternal damnation. Maybe. You’d be forgiven for concluding that Malabimba is a horror film based on the above description. Centered around a young girl being possessed by a spirit in an old gothic castle, the premise is ripe for all the sorts of Exorcist style shenanigans that only Italian rip-off artists can deliver. But director Andrea Bianchi and writer Piero Regnoli have something more important on the mind; lots of sleazy sex. This is much more a psychosexual soap opera than it is a horror film. If you’re looking for blood and gore, or ghosts and ghouls and goblins, you’l...

aka Terminator II, Alienators, Contaminator Dir. Bruno Mattei An Aliens (1986) rip-off marketed as a sequel to The Terminator (1984), Shocking Dark is a mostly dull slice of Italian schlock hell from the tail end of the 80’s. And when I say Aliens rip-off, I mean Bruno Mattei (Vincent Dawn) and Claudio Fragasso (Clayde [not Clyde] Anderson) may as well have gone into a theater playing Aliens, filmed it, and sold a bootleg with new cover art. Obviously I’ve come to expect Italian trash cinema to be shameless; that’s no surprise. But I was taken aback at how bold this movie is in the almost beat-for-beat mimicry on display. Still there’s enough trashy charm to warrant a mild recommendation provided you’ve got a few friends and some potent potables on hand.   Sometime in the future, Venice has become uninhabitable due to water and air pollution. A group of researches from the (totally) Tubular Corporation, living in the tunnels under Venice to find a solution, send a...

aka Zombi 3 , Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 Dir. Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei There will always be a place in my heart for Italian Zombie Movies. I guess you could say the genre was my first stop down the trash rabbit hole. I remember either middle school or early high school when I really started getting into horror. Taking trips to Suncoast and Borders, and begging my mom to order me stuff through Amazon before I had a debit card were pretty normal, diving head first into the Anchor Bay and Blue Underground catalogues. After exhausting the Romero oeuvre and Return of the Living Dead (1985), and having gotten a taste for Argento after seeing Suspiria (1977), Italy was next logical step to satisfy my hunger for the undead as the post millennium zombie boom started by 28 Days Later (2002) and the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004) hadn’t taken full effect yet. It was Netflix (pre-streaming era) or brick-and-mortar for me if I wanted to get my fix. So Italian Zombie flicks make me especi...

Dir. Bernard Launois Trash cinema is an acquired taste. It’s not fun for everyone. What some see as singular visions from outsider artists, or happy accidents of low budget incompetence, others (most people) just see as boring or offensive or both. But occasionally there are films so uniquely batshit, so compellingly alien, so hilariously baffling, that they are accessible to trash aficionados and casual viewers alike. I like to call these films ‘face-melters’; movies so kinetically entertaining that you just can’t help love them as they strap you into a roller coaster that goes off like a bullet train to Awesometown. Films like Raw Force (1982), Death Spa (1989), Miami Connection (1987), Lady Terminator (1989), Ninja III: The Domination (1984), Chopping Mall (1986), etc. Then there are films called ‘brain-melters’; movies that are so inept, so bizarre, and so glacially paced that they feel like you’re watching someones fevered nightmare more than you’re watching an ...