3 Dev Adam (1973)

The Turkish movie where Captain America teams up with El Santo to battle the Evil Spider-Man.

... All without permission from the any from anyone who owns the rights to these characters.

When I heard that a Turkish film studio put out an unauthorized film in the 1970s where Captain America teams up with the Mexican wrestler to stop Spider-Man's Istanbul crime wave, I just knew that I had to track this crime-against-film down and watch it.

It was easy to find on Youtube, although I only found a low quality version without subtitles. And since I don't understand Turkish, I won't know what the heck is going on. But, I have a feeling that I wouldn't be able to figure out what was going on in this movie even if I did speak Turkish...

It starts with Evil Turkish Spider-Man, his red-haired gun moll, and his goons on the beach where they've buried a woman up to her head in sand and run her over with a boat. Evil Turkish Spider-Man wears ugly green outfit with a red hood, and a big red spider on the back.

Next, Evil Spider-Man stabs three random men to death with a switchblade. I assume they're supposed to be mobsters, since Evil-Spider-Man says "Audios mafia" (the only dialog in this movie I've understood so far) over their bleeding corpses. Spidey seems to have cashed in his super-powers in favor of becoming a homicidal maniac. Oh Spidey, you could have been an amazing homicidal maniac WITH your powers.

Then we go to a fashion show where I am almost expecting Evil-Spider-Man to jump out and start snapping the model's necks... but no. Instead,

I wish I knew what was going on.

a woman in a jumpsuit sneaks into an office and starts photographing papers. Then she is captured and then driven out to a building where some large men tie her to a post. Outside, another car drives up and a man in a suit gets out and removes his tie... is this a job for Turkish Captain America?

It is! Also Steve Rogers seems to have dyed his hair black and emigrated to Turkey. But that's probably enough nitpicking for now...



Turkish Captain America is a violent man. He jumps through the door and beats the living crap out of the whole gang and frees Jumpsuit Girl, all while Evil-Spider-Man watches outside from his hiding spot. When Turkish Captain America sees Evil Spidey, he chases him to a cemetery where he beats Evil Spidey up. But when Turkish Cap gets his foot stuck in a gravestone, Evil Spidey manages to escape. So embarrassing, I hate it when that happens. Anyway, it looks like we're gonna have a whole hour of movie left now.

And that makes Turkish El Santo sad. He gets introduced next when he is beating up an evil doer of his own... and dojo full of black belts. (In an actual lucha libre movie, it would've been a dojo full of little person black belts.)

When Evil Turkish Spider-Man finds out that both heroes are after him he is not happy. So naturally, he climbs through a random woman's bedroom window and strangles her in the bath with the shower sprayer. Then he steals an ugly statue on his way out of her house. I'm starting to wonder if this movie was written by Turkish J Jonah Jameson...

Then Turkish El Santo runs around town getting into fights with local thugs while not wearing his mask. Which is a sacrilege, the real El Santo never removed his mask! Otherwise how would the local thugs know to attack him? Similarly Turkish Captain-America spends a lot of time wearing a pinstripe suit that I think he must have taken from one of the gangsters he beat to death with his bare hands.

Next Evil Spidey has some fun by torturing some guy with a pair of rats. Then Turkish Captain America and Turkish Santo put on their costumes so they can beat up some gangsters in the basement of a strip club (I know they're gangster because they're wearing the same pinstipe suits Captain Ametica wears when he's off duty.) While the two heroes are distracted by beating up mobsters, Evil Spidey takes the opportunity to walk in on  a couple fornicating in the shower and stab them to death and watch their blood flow down the drain. All in a days work for your friendly neighborhood Turkish Spider-Man!

Afterwords he fights both Turkish Captain America and Turkish El Santo. In two separate fights. How many Evil Spider-Men are there?

At least 3, because as soon as Turkish Captain America strangles his Evil Spidey, another one jumps out of the woodwork.

Make that at least 4...

Santo in the Chamber of Dead Spideys

While Turkish Captain America is busy killing Evil Spidey #4 on the roof, Evil Spidey #5 shows up in the street below with a bag over one shoulder and gives an evil laugh before driving off in his car.

Later, when the two heroes are hanging out in the bar in their civilian clothes, a bunch of Evil Spidey's goons show up. After a giant bar fight, the goons haul Turkish Captain America and Turkish El Santo into their car. They drive them out to Evil Spidey's lair and lock them in the basement at gunpoint. Maybe Evil Spidey's had enough of this movie.

Turkish Cap and Turkish Santo manage to escape from the basement by fighting each other so the goons will let them out. (Yeah, that doesn't make any sense to me either, but in the movie it works.) Then the proceed to beat up all the goons to death. Once all of Evil-Spidey's henchmen and his red haired gun moll are dead, Turkish Captain America chases Evil Spidey through his lair while Turkish Santo stands watch over the dead henchmen. Turkish Cap kills Evil Spidey #5 with his bare hands. He kills Evil Spidey #6 by crushing his head in a press. #7 gets thrown into a machine and hung from the ceiling. #8 gets caught in a conveyor belt and crushed. #9 gets unmasked in the back of a police car.

This movie was at least as much fun to watch as it was awful. It's just so, so wrong. Turkish Captain America? Santo removing his mask? Evil homicidal Spider-Man? It's an awful film, but it's worth the view because of it.

Dark of the Sun (1968)

Hey there, Internet People! It's time for another movie review, and today I'll be reviewing my recently received copy of the 1968 man-on-a-mission film, Dark of the Sun.

It has a reputation for being extremely violent and Tarantino even used some of the films score in Inglorious Basterds, so we must be in for a treat, right? In any case, I can check another fi7lm off of my "Watch All the Films Referenced in a Tarantino Movie" list. (Okay, I don't actually have a list of all the films referenced by Tarantino movies.)

Set during the Congo Crisis that was unfolding while the film was in production, it follows a band of mercenaries hired by the President of the Congo ostensibly to rescue a town full of Europeans civilians from the advancing rebel Simbas, but in reality their mission is to retrieve fifty million dollars worth of diamonds from a mining company vault before the rebels can seize them (Blood Diamonds anyone? Looks like I'm gonna have read those Wikipedia articles, too...)

Despite the ripped-from-the-headlines-plot, it feels very much like the other war movies of the era. The mercenaries include Bruce Curry (played by Rod Taylor), as the leader, Rufo (football player and 70s and 80s action movie regular Jim Brown), the friend, Doctor Wreid (British actor Kenneth Moore), as the alcoholic or perhaps as the british guy, and Ex-Nazi Heinlein (Peter Carsten) as the expert and to provide the obligitory tension in the group. He's even wearing a swastika pinned to his uniform in his first scene. None of the rest of team trusts him, but he does bring a company of trained soldiers with him, so they tolerate him for the time being. Of course, by the rules of the genre, we all know that by the end of the movie they'll have this all worked out and probably sacrifice himself for one of them... or he will have betrayed them to the Simbas in a ploy to get the diamonds for himself.

Things soon go wrong when their train is strafed by a UN plane despite having UN clearance. Exploding train cars and machine gun fire ensues, it looks like this movie's going to have non-stop action from the first reel. When they're not fighting the movie goes full soap opera. Curry argues with Dr Wreid over his drinking the moment the bullets stop flying and the fires are all put out, they he takes one of the congolese soldiers to task for choking up when the UN plane was strafing them.

The film also has lots of gorgeous scenery. It was filmed in Jamaica along the Jamaican railway system and there is plenty of shots of the forests.

Yes, this movie really does have a CHAINSAW FIGHT.

In one early scene Heinlein machine guns to Congolese children believing them to be spies while the rest of the hardened mercenaries watch shocked. In the next scene Curry asked Rufo "why don't you hate whites?" They don't make movies like this anymore.

Then Heinlein goes after Curry with a chainsaw in an effort to resolve their differences. And then Curry tries to crush Heinlein's skull under the wheels of their train. Forget all about what I wrote earlier about this movie feeling like any other 60s war movie. They didn't have chainsaw duels in The Dirty Dozen. This movie is amazing.

Once the train arrives in the town, the mercenaries get to have even more character development. After Dr Wreid and Heinlein get drunk and shoot up an (empty) bar, Curry hauls Wreid off to the local church where he is needed to help deliver a baby despite the fact that Dr Wreid is a, drunk and b, apparently only qualified to remove patch up bullet wounds. Dr. Wreid then decides to stay behind so he can be murdered by the Simbas once they arrive.

All hell breaks loose when they Simbas arrive right before the time lock on the diamond vault door opens. Fortunately, it seems the simbas are armed with wooden spears while the mercenaries have machine guns. Unfortunately things turn into a running firefight with the rebels firing on the fleeing train with mortars (yeah, they have mortars now.) Then their train gets blown up an they have to flee on foot. The mercenaries, the evacuating civilians, and the diamonds, surrounded by an army of leftist guerrillas who want to torture them all to death. And to make things even worse in all this the diamonds get left in the hotel in town. The same town that the Simbas just seized.

Curry and Rufo have a plan for retrieving the diamonds that is pure awesome. Rufo walks into town with Curry stripped to the waist and slung over one shoulder. They just wander into the hotel past the crowd of guerillas caught up in a frenzy of looting, pillaging, raping, and killing. (Did I mention that this movie totally deserves it's reputation? 'Cause it does.) Once inside they snatch the diamonds off the table and then kill everybody with machine guns and blow up everything that hasn't burned down yet.

Rufo and Curry follow up their moment of badass by spending the next scene arguing over Curry fighting because he's a mercenary versus Rufo fighting for his country.  Then Heinlein shows up and murders Rufo while Curry is away from the group. It looks like they've elected not to have them settle their difference with Heinlein and instead they went with the other option. That's probably not surprising after the Chainsaw Incident.

Then Curry gets back from wherever he was and finds the rest of the cast holding a funeral for Rufo. At this point he seems to forget all about the diamonds and heard of refugees he's leading. Yeah, this movie is awesome. And brutal.

This is messed up in so many ways, but it comes with a very surprising moral at the end of the movie. One that the whole rest of the movie was just one big setup for. I would recommend this movie to anyone who wanted to see something in the vein of Blood Diamond.

Trailer

Imdb
Rotten Tomatoes

Four of the Apocalypse (1975)

As promised, I am finally getting around to reviewing this movie...

Four  of the Apocalypse, a spaghetti western by Lucio Fulci and based on two short stories by Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Poker Flat. who would later go on to make The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, and The House by the Cemetary. Most of his movies very violent, and this one is no exception. If you decide to watch this movie, it's less a movie with a plot, than a movie about a series of depraved things happening to bad people.
 
Stubby Preston, a gambler finds himself tossed in local jail soon after arriving in town. There he meet up with the pregnant prostitute Bunny O'Neil, town drunk Clem and madman Bud. They don't remain in jail long, as vigilantes descend on the town and kill everyone but them. The four of them escape into the Utah wilderness where they run into the gun toting bandit Chaco. Despite the fact that he apparently shoots everything he sees, they welcome him into their band at first.

They have such a "fun" time with Chaco... he shoots a huge pile of small game for them to eat, he saves them from other marauding bandits, forces them to watch as he tortures aforementioned marauding bandits, forces them to take hallucinogens, rapes Bunny while the others are forced to watch, shoots, Clem in the leg, and steals Stubby's razor before leaving them in the desert without any supplies. If the other four are metaphorically the four horsemen of the apocalypse, then Chaco must be Satan himself.

Never trust a homicidal madman, kiddies.

The Utah desert is such a small place when forced to share it with Chaco. Fortunately Chaco is apparently easily distracted and looses interest in them when he stumbles across a band of Mormons to shoot. Not since Yosemite Sam, has the wild west seen a villain so evil. While cradling the corpse of a child randomly murdered by Chaco, Stubby swears that he will kill Chaco. The story has given us no indication thus far, however that he can actually pull that off...

During a torrential rainstorm, they take refuge in an abandoned mining town and wonder aloud why it was abandoned. I know why it was abandoned, it's because it never stops raining there! Seriously did nobody Fulci that it rainstorms out in the desert last for something like five minutes? Despite being rained in, the four of them are happy there, Stubby and Bunny are happy because they get to lay around naked, Clem is happy because he dies and no longer has to be in this movie, and Bud is really happy because he gets to run around the cemetery talking to the dead people and because he gets to feed Clem's left butt-cheek to Stubby and Bunny... Wait, what?!

So it's time for Stubby and Bunny to leave Bud behind with his dead people and move on. They soon run into a traveling minister, who happens to be an old friend of Stubby. Now, we all know that some sort of misfortune will befall the minister just because of his association with him. But what sort of misfortune will that be, exactly?

They end up in the snowy town of Alderville. It's located high in the mountains and is populated solely by men for some reason. It is here that Bunny goes into labor. The whole town gather around while Bunny gives birth and promptly dies, (thus returning Alderville to it's previous all male population). The men of Alderville get together and decide to name the boy "Lucky".

So Stubby leaves Lucky, the minister, and the men of Alderville behind and returns to the road armed with a bottle of whiskey and a gun given to him as a going away present. He rides off into the desert with the soundtrack playing a 70s folk rock tune when he stumbles onto Chaco and his gang sleeping in a barn. Stubby shoots them all, taking his sweet time with Chaco. And he got his lucky razor back.

The House by the Cemetery (1981)

A New Yorker, Norman moves his wife and son, Bob into a creepy, run down New England mansion in order to continue his research into the 19th century surgeon Dr Freudstein who's experiments led to him losing his medical license and being banned from the medical profession for life.

Dr Freudstein in his later years.

...And now would be a good time to mention that the creepy run down New England mansion the family moves into is the former home of Doctor Freudstein. And that Norman is actually continuing the research of a colleague of his Dr. Peterson who committed suicide while researching Dr Freudstein experiments. And that there is a history of deaths and disappearances in this house. And that Bob has an "imaginary" friend who tells him to leave the house. And that the basement door is strangely sealed shut. And that Dr. Boyle discovers that Dr Freudstein was never actually buried in the cemetery records say he was...  needless to say, if you're familiar at all with the horror genre you should be able to pretty much piece the whole movie together from that. Still this is a really fun and creepy movie.

Bob will save his family from the evil thing in the basement.

This is movie number three in legendary Italian horror director, Lucio Fulci's unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy. Consisting of this movie as well as The City of the Living Dead (1980) and The Beyond (1980). They're not a trilogy in the sense that they share a common continuity, but they are a trilogy in the thematic sense, each of them revolve around a gateway to Hell (these aren't figurative gateways either). And all three of them are super creepy.

If you call yourself a horror fan at all, this one is a must see (as well as much of the rest of Fulci's work, but that's probably a subject for another article).

The House by the Cemetery (Imdb)

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)

This wholesome looking fellow is the narrator.

When vampire begin to walk in the sunlight and hunt the lesbian of Ottawa, the Catholic Church turns the only one they can: Jesus Christ himself (played by Phil Caracas, who also starred in Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace).

After being recalled to duty by the church, Jesus updates his image with a shave and haircut, pierced ears and a new wardrobe. Then he battle mobs of atheists, lots of vampires, and the mad scientist Dr. Pretorius using his awesome Kung Fu and sidekicks Mary Magnum and El Santos.

El Santos & Jesus Christ 

Even though this movie's budget was probably too low for it to be even a B-movie, it's got everything a good B movies should have: a ridiculous premise, fun music numbers, and lots of action. Nevermind the poor film quality, this movie's brilliant.

 If you enjoy this you might check out the similar movie, Ultrachrist.

Imdb

Super Inframan (1975)

What would you get if Ultraman was redone by in Hong Kong by the Shaw Brothers? You'd get Super Inframan of course!

When the evil Demon Princess breaks free from the center of the Earth where she had been imprisoned since the ice age, she immediately declares to the world her intention to conquer the Earth.

When she sends her demons and her army of Skeleton Men to attack the Science Headquarters (Yes, you read that right. It's a big metal dome with lots of blinking lights, exactly the kind of place you'd expect Kirk, Spock and McCoy to beam into along with an ill-fated red shirted ensign- in other words, it's a Science Headquarters), it falls to Rayma (played by Danny Lee) and the science patrol to stop them.

The Evil Demon Princess and her blond wig. 

Now the Science Patrol may be motorcycle riding kung fu experts dressed in silver jumpsuits that would make Evel Knievel jealous, but these monster are just too much for them to handle. That's when their boss, Professor Liu Ying De breaks out his secret weapon: he transforms Rayma into the kung fu cyborg superhero, Inframan. As Inframan, Rayma wastes no time battling the Demon Princess's minions, starting with the Plant Monster and the Spider Monster.

The Professor goes boating with Drill Mutant and a skeleton man.

For a while Inframan seems to have the demons on the run. That is until they steal Inframan's blue prints  and kidnap the Professor and his daughter in order to lure Inframan into a trap. Inframan and the Science patrol go the Demon Princess's lair for the final battle with her and her minions, but will they survive?

If you love Shaw Brothers movies and Superhero movies, find a copy of this movie and watch it.  This movie is pure fun and has surprisingly good special effects for a low budget movie from the mid 70s that looks like a power ranger episode.  If you need more convincing watch one of these clips:

Imdb

The Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

The Simians have returned and they still want Earth for their new home. Unfortunately, like the last time (Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla). Godzilla stands in their way. Their solution? They pose as human and put together a project to build a new Mechagodzilla with which to battle Godzilla (the previous one was destroyed by Godzilla, and the beginning of the movie has a recap of that battle).


Now, the more astute of you may be asking,"But that sounds kinda like their last evil world domination plot?" Apparently also recognizing this flaw in their plans, the Simian's leader, Mugal (Goro Mutusumi) enlists the help of mad scientist, Dr. Shinzo Mafune (Akihko Hirata) and his cyborg daughter, Katsura Mafune.

Dr Mafune has a normally peaceful giant aquatic dinosaur, the Titanosaurus, under his mind control. Dr Mafune shares the Simans' goal of destroying humanity and loans them the use of his Titanosaurus. Actually he seems to be more eager to destroy humanity than the Simians as he unleashes Titanosaurus on Yokosuka. And at this point we can ignore the actions of the non-kaiju characters and enjoy the carnage as Godzilla battles Mechagodzilla and the Titanosaurus in Yokosuka and the Japanese country side.

This movie was the last of Toho's Showa era Godzilla movies, they wouldn't make another one until 1984 when they rebooted the series with The Return of Godzilla. It was also the last movie directed by Ishiro Honda, who directed not only the original Godzilla in 1954, but a series of interesting tokusatsu films from the 50's through the 70's.


I'd recommend this movie to any Godzilla fan, and if you wanna see more in this vein, I'd suggest also watching Destroy All Monsters, and King Kong Escapes.

Imdb

The Mighty Peking Man (1977)

If you can see only one campy 70's King Kong remake, see The Mighty Peking Man. If you wanna see two campy 70's King Kong remakes, see The Mighty Peking Man twice.

When an earthquake in the Himalayas unleashes a gigantic ape man and his bikini-clad pet blond girl (played by Evelyne Kraft), fortune seeking adventurer Johnny (played by Danny Lee) hauls them both off to Hong Kong and puts them on display. The ensuing antics pretty much follow the rest of the plot of King Kong.

 This movie the Shaw Brother's response to Dino De Laurentiis's 1976 King Kong remake. The Shaw Brother's film in my opinion manages to be much more fun while having a smaller budget than other.

I got my copy as part of the Rolling Thunder Pictures Presents
triple feature along with Detroit 9000 and Switchblade Sisters. However if the prospect of nearly six hours of low budget movies doesn't excite you, this movie is also available to stream on Netflix.

Also known as Goliathon.

 

Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops (1961)

Also titled: Maciste Nella Terra Dei Ciclop

When the evil Queen Caprys invades a neighboring city state, it is up to heroic strongman Maciste (played by bodybuilder Gordon Mitchell to prevent her from completing the job by preventing her from feeding it's infant king (and descendant of Ulysses) to her pet Cyclops.  What follows is a series Maciste's heroic exploits: wrestling a lion, helping the bad guys move giant containers of wine into their palace, playing tug of war over a pit of hungry lions (the makers of this movie must have been fond of lions), and waking up next to a very large muscular man after a night of heavy drinking. All while wearing nothing but a loin cloth.

The film is fairly typical of Italian Sword and Sandal movies of the time and the main character, Maciste, is also featured in a whole series of Italian movies in the 1920s and again in the 1960s. The film has faded badly to a yellow color, but this is common among old low budget films. The plot isn't the most coherent in the world and I found myself wondering how the various scenes connected to each other. If you like old B movies I would recommend rounding up a group of victims -er "friends" to watch it with while. (Though I think that's the only way anyone ever watches these movies!)

Atlas Against the Cyclops

Movies I Reccomend: Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, 1974

 

For a long while now I've had a special place in my heart for all of Hammer horror movies, but if pressed I would have to offer this little gem as my favorite.

When Dr Marcus (John Carson), a medical doctor living in a small village notices young girls being drained of their youth, he calls in a old army friend of his, Captain Kronos (Horst Janson). Kronos bears the scars of his time in the army and of a vampire attack, which upon surviving he devoted his life to hunting vampires. Kronos is accompanied by Caroline Munro as the film's obligatory pretty girl and by his hunchback assistant Professor Hieronymus Grost, who acts the brains of the operation to Kronos's brawn.

The movie departs greatly from the formula used in Hammer's Dracula series in a couple of important ways: First, in the universe of Kronos, there are many different types of vampires each with their own specific strengths and weaknesses, and a major (and unintentionally funny) plot point of the movie revolves around the character's attempts to discover how to kill the vampire.  Second, Kronos is able to battle the vampire on equal footing and the movies climax is an between Kronos and the vampire, both of them master swordsmen. Today audiences expect that of their vampire hunters, but keep in mind this movie was made in 1974 and Peter Cushing's Van Helsing was representative of the heroes in vampire up to then, and movie audiences expected vampire hunters to battle their foes by waiting for sunup and throwing the curtains open.

This movie stands out as one of Hammer's more creative vampire movies. The director of the movie (Brian Clemens) had wanted to do a series around these characters, but it never came to pass as Hammer was having financial problems by this point. If there is some parallel universe out there somewhere where the director got to film his Kronos series instead of this lone movie, I would give almost anything to be able to visit it long enough to see a Kronos marathon.

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter IMDb