The films

obscure

Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters

Every monster at once, all of them on a budget of nothing. Delightful.

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Scum of the Earth

Herschell Gordon Lewis invents the roughie the same year he invents gore. Busy man.

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Street Mobster

Bunta Sugawara as pure appetite. The jitsuroku style arriving fully formed.

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The Boxer's Omen

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

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The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist

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

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Three the Hard Way

Brown, Williamson and Kelly against a plot to poison the water supply.

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Turkey Shoot

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

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Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs

Toei's red-coated killer cop, and the blueprint for every lone avenging woman after her.

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Blind Beast

Masumura, one set, three actors, and an ending that goes much further than expected.

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Fair Game

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

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Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41

Ito's second, and the most formally daring film in the whole category.

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Girl Boss Guerilla

Norifumi Suzuki at full speed. Reiko Ike is the whole show.

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Hawk the Slayer

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

cult

Island of Death

Mykonos has never looked prettier or hosted anything uglier. Mastorakis dared himself to be banned and won.

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Lady Terminator

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

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Maniac

Dwain Esper's roadshow lunacy. A man eats a cat's eye. Not the 1980 film.

cult

Mystics in Bali

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

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Purana Mandir

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

cult

Santo vs. the Martian Invasion

Martians in togas demand Earth's surrender. Santo declines.

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Sugar Hill

Revenge via Haitian zombies. The best of the blaxploitation horror crossovers.

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The Brainiac

Not a Santo film. A forked-tongue demon eating brains with a spoon.

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The Curious Dr. Humpp

Argentine, insane, and re-cut by its US distributor into something stranger.

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The Curse of the Crying Woman

The Mexican gothic at its cobwebbed peak, Universal horror with the fog cranked up.

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The Lickerish Quartet

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

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The Loreley's Grasp

A Rhine myth relocated to Spain, with a monster that only works in long shot.

cult

The Mack

Half drama, half documentary of 1970s Oakland. The real players are in it.

cult

The Violent Professionals

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

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The Violent Years

A girl gang robs, kidnaps and worse. Written by Ed Wood, which explains everything.

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Thirst

A secret society farms humans for blood. Ozploitation does vampires as corporate agribusiness.

cult

Violated Angels

The Richard Speck murders restaged as avant-garde pink film. Wakamatsu's coldest hour.

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Violent Naples

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

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Women in Cages

Pam Grier as the sadist for once. Bleaker than its stablemates.

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Angels Hard as They Come

Jonathan Demme's first script, produced by Corman. Rashomon on bikes.

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At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul

The first Brazilian horror film, and the birth of Coffin Joe, a national icon with terrible fingernails.

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Beyond the Door

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

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Dead End Drive-In

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