Exploitation films

Boardinghouse

The first shot-on-video horror feature, blown up to 35mm and just as ugly as that sounds.

Human Lanterns

A Shaw wuxia that turns into a slasher, with lanterns made of human skin.

The Queen of Black Magic

Suzzanna, Indonesia's horror queen, wronged by a whole village and collecting on the debt.

Bewitched

Shaw Brothers black magic: worms, curses and a Taoist priest fighting a Thai sorcerer.

Next of Kin

A slow-burn gothic in a nursing home. Much better than its obscurity suggests.

Seeding of a Ghost

Ninety minutes of restrained Shaw revenge, then twenty of rotting-corpse insanity.

The Clones of Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee is cloned three times to fight crime. Bruce Le, Bruce Lai and Dragon Lee, together at last.

Bare Behind Bars

Brazil's Boca do Lixo does women-in-prison with everything the drive-in cut left out.

Five Element Ninjas

Chang Cheh spills more guts here than in any Shaw film before it, and grins the whole way.

The Boxer's Omen

The most deranged thing Shaw Brothers ever paid for, and it never slows down to explain itself.

Turkey Shoot

The budget vanished mid-shoot and they kept going. Chaotic, mean, fun.

Fair Game

A woman alone at an outback wildlife reserve is hunted by three kangaroo poachers. Lean and nasty.

Hawk the Slayer

Jack Palance chewing a fantasy kingdom to splinters while a sword flies about on wires. Beloved for it.

Lady Terminator

The Terminator, if the machine were a sea goddess and had no shame whatsoever.

Mystics in Bali

The Indonesian one everybody means: a flying witch's head, viscera trailing, hunting in the dark.

Purana Mandir

The hit that proved Indian audiences would pay to watch a man in a rubber demon mask.

Dead End Drive-In

A drive-in turned into an internment camp. The satire is not subtle.

Exterminators of the Year 3000

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

2020 Texas Gladiators

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

Chained Heat

Linda Blair goes to prison. A sleazy 80s update of the formula, with a corrupt warden and a hot tub.

Conquest

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

Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood

The fake snuff film that got Charlie Sheen on the phone to the FBI.

Reform School Girls

The women-in-prison film as its own punchline, fronted by the lead singer of the Plasmatics.

The Living Dead Girl

Rollin's best late film. Melancholy where the Italians were loud.

Barbarian Queen

Corman's Argentine Conan-with-women, honest bottom-shelf swords and loincloths.

Brain Damage

A parasite gives a young man euphoric highs in exchange for feeding it brains. Addiction as horror.

Burial Ground

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

Cannibal Apocalypse

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

Nightmare City

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

The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter

Lau Kar-leung's brutal last great Shaw film. A massacred family, and pole fighting as grief.

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.

Veerana

The Ramsay brothers' witch movie, with musical numbers between the murders.

Vigilante

Lustig doing it straight. Robert Forster deserves better and knows it.

Women's Prison Massacre

Late Italian entry. Laura Gemser, and a body count instead of a plot.

Contamination

Alien via Rome, with exploding chests and a Goblin score doing heavy lifting.