Hit Man (George Armitage, 1972)

Blaxploitation remake of Get Carter. And not very good one to be honest.

Major problem is that it cannot decide whether to be hard-boiled crime or exploitation action flick. So for the first 75 minutes our hero wonders around LA but his investigation regarding his brother killing is pretty pathetic. He keeps asking/threating the same prostitute who used to be involved with his brother and he also keeps getting harassed by two (not very) tough guys urging him to get the hell out of the town. In the meantime he fucks two girls and runs into sleazy porn movie peddler. White of course.

Standard stuff. Some flashy dialogues and bad-ass one-liners plus few outraging hairdos and crazy clothes backed up by a funky soundtrack. Decent and watchable, but lacking big time in the action department. Laughable at times, especially fights are staged very amateurish.

It gets better in the last 20 minutes. After waiting for the first corpse for so long, body count starts to climb rapidly. We get cold blooded execution (x2), hanging, scarface style shoot-out and one unfortunate soul even gets torn apart by lions! But these scenes too are choreographed and executed pretty poorly and especially fake blood looks simply ridiculous.

Highlight and the saving grace of this flick is definitely Pam Grier! Although her role is pretty small and not very significant one, she's credited right after the leading hero Bernie Casey. Which I find unusual since Hit Man slightly precedes Coffy, Foxy Brown and all those other great movies that we love her for. I don't think she had been famous yet in '72 but director obviously realized who the real star of his movie was.

5/10

Gômon kifujin aka Rusted Body (Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu, 1987)

This one is bizarre and nasty even by high Japanese standards of weirdness. 

Plot is the simplest one possible: gang of criminals kidnaps wealthy manager and tortures him in order to get the code of his bank account. They are led by this hot and busty lady and other members are her young lesbian lover (I think) with her granddad (ex soldier) and another dude. 

It’s all about sex and torture, so let me go through it quickly:

First one is quite standard fingernails and teeth pulling. It’s quickly over and I think it just serves to show how weird and hot our two female protagonists are. Because they perform this torture topless and prior to that we can enjoy watching them having sex.

Second one is again pretty standard but more old school. They put this naked chick into a barrel filled with eels so “they can penetrate every single hole”. Things start to get a bit strange here because this old guy (fully dressed in his uniform) starts pouring sake into the water. But we soon get the explanation: “You see, the eel are drunk from the sake. They are very lively. You'd better keep your anus tight, as tight as you can.”

Next one is the most bizarre and I’m not sure I’ve got it. Old bastard has invented some kind of bed that transmits sexual energy, so they have this poor guy tied to the chair and he must watch his wife being fucked while that energy is also transmitted into his brain. On top of that there’s our gang leader riding and interrogating him at the same time. All these effort and techniques seem to be successful because guy almost gives in and he reveals first four digits of the account before he comes back to his senses.

Last one is hilarious. Our horny lady gives a guy a blow job but then ties a knot around his dick when he’s erected so he cannot ejaculate. Then they both start fucking him so more he comes in more pain he is. And in the meantime Spanish inquisition continues:

• Confess.
• Never.
• Here he comes again. Terrific. I am learning a lot.
• Help.
• Confess, or it will decay.
• It hurts.
• You see how tight it is?
• It feels good.
• Which is more important? Your money or your dick?
• Money.
• Okay, keep your money. But you will live like a eunuch.
• Farewell to your weapon.
• Okay, okay... I lost. I will tell you. Stop, stop.
• Here comes the third time. Your scrotum will explode.
• 48216709. Ah... I'm dying.
• Ah, me too.

 Cool stuff – short and sleazy and (kind of) sexy and pretty nasty.

6/10

Oppai Chanbara aka Chanbara Striptease (Akira Hirose, 2009)

Blades, Babes & Boobs! Another Japanese crazy Manga transferred to DVD. This one is actually watchable because it has at least some sort of the story and also because it’s short as it runs a bit over one hour. We follow this chic Lili travelling 300 years into the past as the part of the ritual for her to become master of fighting discipline which basically involves showing her tits which then start to flash some weird fluorescent light. She then proceeds to lose her virginity and helps some villagers to get rid of their oppressors (led by another hot chick) in the “Seven Samurai” way. 

Uf, wait a minute – did I say there’s a plot? Nope, I said there’s some kind of plot...

6/10

Patrick vive ancora AKA Patrick Is Still Alive (Mario Landi, 1980)

Real nasty little sadistic giallo. We are drawn into the movie with first violent event taking place even before title comes up. Soon after we find ourselves inside some villa owned by mad doctor and occupied with “randomly picked” guests, each with some dark secrets. There’s also a beautiful blond secretary which is somehow (through fluorescent shining eyes!) connected with doctor’s comatose son. So in short: you don’t have a clue what the fuck is going on, so you just relax and wait for killings to start happening. 

And this waiting is very pleasant because there are few beautiful women running around naked all the time (they don't have sex though which is a bit strange when you think about it). When nasty stuff finally starts to take place, it goes from modestly nasty to real gory. Won’t go into details here, but one scene is really worth mentioning. This woman is chased by some sort of floating pole (!!!) and instead of just running away, she screams her ass off (ok, we are used to this from horror flicks) and – check this shit out – spreads her legs (quite graphically, close to hard porn), so this pole can penetrate and finally impale her! And the whole scene is shot in this really slow motion, Fulci kind of paying attention to details. 

Hilarious stuff, no way this kind of sleaze could be made these days.

8/10