Mao shan xiao tang (1986)

... aka: 茅山學堂
... aka: 靈幻祖師
... aka: First Vampire in China, The
... aka: First Vampire of China, The
... aka: Ling huan zu shi
... aka: Spiritual Ancestor

Directed by:
Ying Wong

Hey, at least the title doesn't lie! The opening sequence goes in great, silly detail explaining how the first ever vampire was formed in China. Back in feudal times, warlords were always looking for various ways to prolong their lives. In his search for immortality, Chow, the King of the West, started eating anything given to him by a black magician. Ironically, one of those things ended up poisoning him and leading to his premature death. However, the "bewitched rhino horn powder" (!!) used to preserve his corpse reacted with something given to him by the wizard which combined with the gold threaded jade coat he was dressed in that acted as an "optical condenser" and managed to take advantage of a change in the celestial configuration where nine of the planet lined up and managed to pull the moon closer to the Earth so that the corpse could absorb some of its energy, ended up turning him into a vampire. It's just that simple! Once transformed, a vampire can infect others with just a scratch. Thankfully, before Vampire King Chow could spread the plague too widely, he and his mini-army of vamps were buried by an earthquake.

Many years later in what looks is supposed to be the 1920s, Alexander Tso (Charlie Cho) arrives in a small village along with his assistant Tao (Siu-Ming To) and secretary / photographer Susan (Suk-yin Chong). Alexander, who likes to constantly boast about being well educated which means he's far too arrogant to realize that he's actually a moron, has just been appointed mayor. The villagers turn out to be highly superstitious and everyone believes in ghosts and vampires. For good reason, it turns out. At the Mount Mao school, Master Kent (Kien Shih) teaches his students all about magic, how to prepare corpses so they don't return to life and how to contain ghosts in urns. What he can't do is keep some of his idiot pupils in line. While goofing off, a few of them manage to unleash a powerful spirit called The Ghost of March (Jung-Lee Hwang).

As a way to scoff at the local customs / superstition, the new mayor intentionally moves into what's reputed to be the most haunted house in town, which is indeed haunted by the ghost of a general (Lung-Wei Wang) who doesn't take too kindly to his possessions being tampered with. Unknowingly, Alexander is protected by something called the "three flames," which isn't visible to the human eye but can repel any ghost who tries to harm him. Because the area is so prone to paranormal activity and because the ground itself is cursed, the locals don't bury corpses in the traditional way but instead treat bodies with black dog blood and wedge their coffins in the side of a mountain. Alexander also finds that silly, especially after one of the students finds a piece of jade in one of the holes.

While everyone else is away, Alexander and Tao decide to use dynamite to blow up part of the mountain and, along with it, some of the caskets. They find the jade suited vampire and take it back to their house. Later that night, students Kwong (Anthony Tang) and Lo (Kin-Kwan Poon), Susan and Kent's daughter Kitty (Yan-Chi Wong) encounter a family of hopping vampires (including a mom, dad and little boy) that have been unleashed. They eventually secure them all with spell paper but then must do battle with the ancient vampire once it springs back to life. As if that isn't enough already, the ghost general and his nonthreatening "tammy ghost" son possess Susan and try to make her kill herself so she can become the son's ghost wife.

This is basically just a bunch of nonsense but at least it's entertaining, fast-paced and action-packed nonsense! The plot stays busy, the mummy-like design of the "first vampire" and its gold/jade suit of armor is something different and there are three well-choreographed, lengthy action scenes with plenty of stunt work. While some of the comedy elements work better than others, this does have a few genuinely amusing moments, especially a bit where one of the hopping vampires does jump rope and the antics of a zombie chicken (!) that infects two of the characters who then take on chicken-like characteristics themselves. There's even a chicken theme song that goes "Bock bock bock bock." Ain't no shame in my "I'm often easily amused" game. 

One of the first hopping vampire horror comedies out of the gate after the massive success of the previous year's MR. VAMPIRE (1985) meant this was a moderate success in its home country. It was also released in Japan and Thailand, though I don't believe there's ever been a legit U.S. release. The only DVD releases appear to be bootlegs.

The director (born Wong Hoi Ming) is best known as a fantasy and horror novelist using the name Huang Ying. Many of his books were adapted for the screen through the 80s by Shaw Brothers (Bat Without Wings, Portrait in Crystal, The Enchantress, The Roving Swordsman...) and he also served as a screenwriter, producer and director on a number of films. Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980) and the aforementioned Mr. Vampire were the two biggest hits he helped write. In 1991 he died of a stroke at the age of just 35.

★★1/2

Come Deadly (1973)

... aka: Cum Deadly
... aka: Harder They Fall, The

Directed by:
Gil Kenston

In a small theater, some (awful!) actors are rehearsing for an upcoming performance of "The Taming of the Shrew." Little do they know, but their lead actress Ann Johnson ("June Medusa" / Maggie Williams) has just been raped and strangled to death right upstairs. A similar fate befell another actress at another theater just two weeks earlier. Hoping to crack the case, and having already had some prior acting training in college, mustachioed detective Winston Rains (Kirt Jones) comes up with a plan to join the theater troupe in hopes of trapping the grunting, heavy-breathing psycho. He almost immediately finds himself in a sexual relationship with actress Julie (Cindy Johnson) but when she discovers his gun belt hidden behind a pillow she's a little upset ("You're a lying pig, you fucking bastard!") and politely asks him to leave ("Get the fuck outta my house!") The psycho then stops by, bends her over, rapes her in front of the fireplace and then strangles her.

Julie somehow manages to survive the attack. Instead of going to the police like any other human being with an IQ above 70 would, she shows up at the theater the next day looking to tell Winston what happened. However, she doesn't get the opportunity and, once she gets back to her apartment, the psycho's there waiting on her. After forcing her to perform oral sex on him, he strangles her again... and makes sure he finishes the job this time! By the way, all of the women in this movie do absolutely nothing to stave off the sexual attacks of the psycho other than squirm and look mildly uncomfortable and seem to go down on any male anywhere at any time who's within spitting (or swallowing) distance. That leads the detective to getting involved with yet another actress named Marie ("Sharon Sharalik" / Nina Fause), who becomes the next target.

It's clear that the killer is someone who's working on the Shakespeare production and the suspect roster includes theater director Andy (Peter Puluva) and bitter, washed up former Broadway star Cliff ("Mel Vickson" / Keith Erickson). It's also clear that the director had seen Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace as the psycho here wears a nearly identical get-up that includes an all-black outfit, a wide-rimmed hat and a tight, expressionless mask. Yet it's not an unmasking that uncovers the identity of the killer but comparison of another body part that the psycho constantly has dangling out of his pants.

This is more or less a terrible regional theater production of The Phantom of the Opera as a hardcore porn. Thankfully, it's awful in a pretty entertaining way, at least as far as the terrible acting, laughably bad dialogue and pitiful attempts at action and horror are concerned. Of course to get to the funnier moments first requires you to sit through (or if you're me, fast-forwarding through) lots of boring, unflatteringly photographed 70s sex that's shoehorned in at every given opportunity. And even that's presented in a rather bizarre fashion. You can tell that some of the actors were willing to do the sex while others were not. As a result, most of the sex seems to have been shot as softcore but with hardcore close-ups (possibly using doubles) added later on. About half of the sex is technically rape, though these scenes aren't the least bit believable or disturbing due to the lack of resistance and emotion from the actresses.

This has been released numerous times by numerous labels in recent years. It was part of a 2005 box set released by Alpha Blue Archives called "The Roughies: Cum Crimes," was part of a "Rapist Rampage" double feature (along with the slightly better-known Wet Wilderness) by After Hours Cinema released in 2008 and was one of twelve films included in Vinegar Syndrome's "All Night at the Bizarre Art Theatre Collection" set released in 2016. I skimmed through several of these releases and none of them had opening or closing credits or even as much as a title card!

★1/2