Exploitation films

Free Hand for a Tough Cop

Tomas Milian debuts Er Monnezza, the filthiest man in Italian crime cinema, and steals his own movie.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist

Late-cycle Castellari. Everyone is exhausted and it shows productively.

The Lickerish Quartet

The most elegant film ever filed under sexploitation, and the reason Metzger belongs in the canon.

The Violent Professionals

Martino sends Luc Merenda undercover and off the leash. Prime cop-on-a-rampage stuff.

Violent Naples

Merli takes his no-mercy cop routine to Naples. Fast, brutal, and politically incoherent as ever.

Beyond the Door

The Italian Exorcist. Warner sued. It made money anyway.

Death Walks at Midnight

Ercoli's brighter, faster Death Walks. Nieves Navarro sees a murder and nobody buys it.

Exterminators of the Year 3000

The Italian Road Warrior with sand instead of the Bronx, muscle car included.

SS Experiment Camp

A DPP video nasty far better known for its poster than for anything in the film.

The Nun and the Devil

Convent politics played as Renaissance power-drama. More Borgia than bondage.

2020 Texas Gladiators

D'Amato and Eastman's Mad Max in a cowboy hat. Assembled entirely from better films.

Behind Convent Walls

Borowczyk brings his erotic art-house eye to the convent. Beautiful, explicit and barely plotted.

Conquest

Fulci does Conan through so much fog you can barely see the gore. Somehow that helps.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man

Two cops who are clearly the villains. Ruggero Deodato, before the jungle.

Rome Armed to the Teeth

Maurizio Merli punches Rome for 100 minutes. Politics: incoherent.

Shoot First, Die Later

Di Leo's dirty-cop picture, and the rot goes all the way home.

The Fifth Cord

The best-looking giallo nobody names, shot by Storaro between two Bertoluccis.

The Long Hair of Death

Margheriti and Barbara Steele do the burned-witch gothic, and the fog does half the acting.

The Perfume of the Lady in Black

Barely a murder mystery. A slow psychological collapse, and superb.

Almost Human

Tomas Milian as a repellent psychopath. Deeply unpleasant, very good.

Burial Ground

Incoherent even by the standards of the cycle. The Peter subplot is unforgivable.

Camille 2000

Dumas restaged in a mod furniture showroom. The best-looking softcore of its year by a mile.

Cannibal Apocalypse

Vietnam veterans as cannibals. Sillier and kinder than the jungle cycle.

Death Walks on High Heels

Ercoli's best. Structurally cleverer than most of the cycle.

High Crime

Castellari's breakout in the genre, and Franco Nero furious for ninety minutes.

If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death

The gadget-gunslinger spaghetti west arrives fully dressed in black.

Images in a Convent

D'Amato's convent, where the theology is a coat-hook for the softcore.

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die

Mid-tier Eurospy with an unusually good title and Mike Connors.

Man from Deep River

The one that started it, by remaking A Man Called Horse in Thailand.

Nightmare Castle

Barbara Steele twice over, one of them back from the grave, scored by a young Morricone.

Nightmare City

Zombies that run and use guns, decades early. Incompetent in enjoyable ways.

Street Law

Castellari's Death Wish. An ordinary engineer, brutalised and ignored, arms himself.

The Big Racket

Castellari's best. The car-rolling-down-the-hill shot is famous for a reason.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

A widower lures redheads to his castle to get over his dead wife. Nonsense plot, glorious mood.

Zombie Holocaust

Cannibals and zombies at once, reusing the Zombi 2 sets and cast.

Ator the Fighting Eagle

Joe D'Amato's Conan, giant puppet spider and all. Miles O'Keeffe swings the sword.