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Friday, February 19, 2016

Last Step Down, The (1970)

... aka: Even Devils Pray
... aka: Last Step Down
... aka: Links

Directed by:
Lawrence Ramport

Some things just go well together. Peanut butter and jelly. Milk and cookies. Cake and ice cream. Sex and Satanism. Yes sir (or ma'am), this is yet another of those 70s sex flicks suckering some of us in with its flimsy occult / horror premise. Back in the day, these things came in both soft and hard varieties, were usually poorly shot on 16mm in just a few days and feature cult members who are more interested in humping at the altar than sacrificing or worshiping. This one – from a one-time-only director that's probably a pseudonym – fits that description to a T. Things open in a Satanic den as a couple of hooded monks walk down the stairs holding candles and make their way to an altar. The main monk (Michael Donovan O'Donnell) says something but no words come out of his mouth because they put music right over it. A very busty brunette woman then approaches and whips out her girls as one of the monks proceeds to rub a rubber dildo all over the breasts and body. Another top heavy young lady (this time a blonde) comes in and two of the monks proceed to have (soft) sex with the ladies for ten minutes. The women are fully nude showing it all while the guys never remove or even open their robes, something they will remedy later on.






The following day we meet the two Satanic hoochies as they sit down for their morning coffee and bitch about the pitfalls of being hookers (“This is too much like work!”). The blonde, Suzy (Neola Graef), whines “Well it took me until 2 in the morning to finally blow their brains out and get 'em off to sleep so I could go back to work. By then all the winners were booked. I finally scored one old geezer who couldn't finish and, uh, oh yeah, a quick head job in a sports car... ugh to foam rubber steering wheels!” The brunette, Norma Jean (Uschi Digard), then claims she was forced to service an entire convention of men. They talk about their whip-wielding pimp “Mother Harry” and then discuss a “new girl” and how they're “going to break her in.” They then decide the best way would be to take her to see the “weekend weirdos” i.e. the Satanist monks up at the old monastery because “those cats really know what it's all about.” But priorities first. Lesbian sex on the living room floor it is.






Mother Harry (who sounds pretty awesome but unfortunately we never get to meet) sends new girl Kathy (Terri Johnson), a naive country lass, over to meet Suzy and Norma Jean. Suzy makes her model a bikini to see if she has the body. The three girls then lounge by the pool for a bit where there's some breast massaging and head upstairs for an all-girl three-way. From there, it's off to the monastery to have an orgy with the two monks that lasts for over twenty minutes and includes all of the expected combos, culminating in Kathy getting screwed on the altar by the main monk while the other three watch. Afterward, Kathy is ready for her new job and her new life. It was “...so groovy and so hot and so tingly. And, wow, so many different ways of doing it!” Norma Jean espouses the virtues of being a hooker: “...all the sex you can handle, independence, good living and a bank account!” But then party-pooper Suzy chimes in “... no friends, your doctor bills are higher, there's always at least one guy living off you and, uh, the fuzz are rough when you're busted...” Uschi then saves the day by informing Kathy she'll have to learn how to do “three-way splits” and then she and Suzy demonstrate just what they're talking about. The end.






Judged as an actual movie, this is about as bad as they come. There's no plot, the acting and dialogue are awful, the sets are barren and it's incredibly boring and poorly-made. As a piece of erotica, this is also a failure because the long simulated sex scenes are awkward, mechanical, poorly-filmed, poorly scored with stock Muzak and fail to generate any real heat. I actually found myself fast-forwarding through the sex just to get to the dialogue scenes. The only thing this really has going for it are the God given physiques of its two stars. Digard is a legend in this kind of work (nude modeling and soft erotica) and really impossible to avoid as she's in hundreds of these things. The real discovery (for me at least) is Graef, who is cute, bubbly and has a body to rival Digard's if you're a big breast fan. The third female, Johnson, is rather average by comparison and dwarfed by her two co-stars... in more ways than one!






I have no clue who was responsible for this. It was clearly shot in a few days and not much thought or work was put into it. The only credits on the print I viewed are the production company / year and the title at the very beginning. The poster is of no help because it doesn't have credits either. IMDb says it was released under the alternate titles Even Devils Pray and Links, though I could find no evidence of that. It also cites the stars as being “Olivia James” (most definitely Graef, as she sometimes used the alias “Olivia Tiernan”), “Beatrice Stolen” (Digard) and “Michael Valentine” (O'Donnell). Johnson, who very seldom used an alias throughout her career unlike most of her contemporaries, is listed by her real name in some sources, though with her first name spelled “Terry.”


What I viewed was the extremely raggedy-looking 54-minute version distributed through Alpha Blue Archives, but now there's a 67-minute restored version on DVD from Redemption Films and Kino Lorber, who've thrown in the 15 minute short Blood Lust (1979) as an extra bonus. The latter was directed by former glamor photographer Russell Gay and is a soft-core adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla.

The 2015 Orloks - 1968 Results

Started many moons ago by Prof-Hieronymos-Grost, the Orloks were a yearly poll on the IMDb horror boards where users submitted Top 5 lists of their favorite horror movies for each year. All of the results were then tabulated to come up with a definitive list of the year's most-liked genre offerings. Alas, when the good Professor decided to depart the boards years ago, the awards went with him... that is until now. IMDb-er seth_yeah - taking on responsibilities as both host and calculator - has decided to bring back this long-standing tradition in 2015, and now the awards will have a permanent place right here on this blog. Scoring is rather simple and done on a weighted system where first choice receives 5 points, second choice 4 points, etc., with a +1 bonus then awarded to the #1 selection on each list. IMDb release years are being used, but it is left up to voters to determine what they may or may not consider horror (which may be in conflict with IMDb's genre labeling system). If you'd like to participate, head on over to the IMDb HORROR BOARDS to vote! So without any further ado, the results...

_________________________________________________________________________________

1968
Top 5
* * * * * * * * * *
1. Night of the Living Dead
USA / 93 points / George A. Romero
* * * * * * * * * *
2. Rosemary's Baby
USA / 57 points / Roman Polanski
* * * * * * * * * *
3. Witchfinder General (The Conqueror Worm)
UK / 32 points / Michael Reeves
* * * * * * * * * *
4. Targets
USA / 29 points / Peter Bogdanovich
* * * * * * * * * *
5. The Devil Rides Out (The Devil's Bride)
UK / 24 points / Terence Fisher

_________________________________________________________________________________

Making the Top 10:

6. Yabu no naka no kuroneko (Kuroneko) / Japan / 18 points / Kaneto Shindô
7. Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf) / Sweden / 10 points / Ingmar Bergman
8. (tie) Dracula Has Risen from the Grave / UK / 7 points / Freddie Francis
8. (tie) Hasta el viento tiene miedo (Even the Wind is Afraid) / Mexico / 7 points / Carlos Enrique Taboada
8. (tie) O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão (The Strange World of Coffin Joe) / Brazil / 7 points / José Mojica Marins
9. (tie) Fando y Lis (Fando and Lis) / Mexico / 6 points / Alejandro Jodorowsky
9. (tie) Il sesso degli angeli (The Sex of Angels) / Italy, West Germany / 6 points / Ugo Liberatore
9. (tie) Le viol du vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) / France / 6 points / Jean Rollin
10. Un tranquillo posto di campagna (A Quiet Place in the Country) / France, Italy / 5 points / Elio Petri

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Others receiving votes:

- Confessions of a Psycho Cat / USA / Herb Stanley
- Fear Chamber (Torture Zone) / Mexico, USA / Jack Hill, Juan Ibáñez
- Ghastly Ones, The / USA / Andy Milligan
- Hebi musume to hakuhatsuma (The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch) / Japan / Noriaki Yuasa
- Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro (Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell) / Japan / Hajime Satô
- La marca del Hombre Lobo (Frankenstein's Bloody Terror) / Spain, West Germany / Enrique López Eguiluz
- La morte ha fatto l'uovo (Death Laid an Egg) / France, Italy / Guilio Questi
- Name of the Game Is Kill!, The / USA / Gunnar Hellström
- Omicidio per vocazione (Deadly Inheritance) / Italy / Vittorio Sindoni
- Più tardi Claire, più tardi... (Run, Psycho, Run) / Italy / Brunello Rondi
- Pretty Poison / USA / Noel Black
- Twisted Nerve / UK / Roy Boulting
- Una iena in cassaforte (A Hyena in the Safe) / Italy / Cesare Canevari
- Whistle and I'll Come to You / UK [TV] / Jonathan Miller
- Yôkai daisensô (Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare) / Japan / Yoshiyuki Kuroda

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Links here will be connected when the time comes.

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