Autostop rosso sangue (1977)

... aka: Auto stop sangriento
... aka: Death Drive
... aka: Hitch-Hike
... aka: Hitch Hike: Last House on the Left
... aka: Hitchhiker's Prey, The
... aka: Naked Prey, The
... aka: Never Give a Lift to a Stranger

Directed by:
Pasquale Festa Campanile

How well is Walter and Eve Mancini's marriage going? Well, let's just say Walter is first seen resting his rifle scope on Eve's head. He (Franco Nero) is an unemployed writer and reporter from Italy when he's not being a loud and extremely obnoxious drunk and she (Corinne Clery) comes from wealth and is getting pretty sick of dealing with his shit. The two take a trip to America with their car and a camper in tow and, after he thoroughly humiliates her at a campground and injures his hand in the process, the vacation's over. On their way back to Los Angeles, they stumble upon Adam Konitz (David Hess), whose car has broken down on the side of the road. Against her husband's wishes, Eve pulls over to give him a lift. Adam claims to be a grad student who needs to get back to college in San Diego. In actuality, he's a dangerous, sadistic criminal who was just involved in an armed robbery and has left behind the corpse of one of his accomplices in his car. It doesn't take long for Adam's true colors to surface. He starts talking all raunchy to Eve, which leads to a fight and eventually Adam pulling a gun.

In possession of a briefcase with 2 million dollars inside, Adam confesses that the police are looking for him and points them in the direction of Mexico. He needs Eve and Walter to help get him through numerous roadblocks set up along the way to get there. Adam guns down two cops in cold blood, quickly realizes that the couple aren't so happy and tries to use that fact to get them to turn on one another. He also decides that he wants Walter to write a book about this experience. The three stop to camp out that night and because he claims the book needs sex, Adam attempts to rape Eve. That all ends when someone shoots him and he falls into a stream. Rescued! Nope, it's just Oaks ("John Loffredo" / Joshua Sinclair) and Hawk (Carlo Puri), two of Adam's brothers-in-crime who helped rob the bank before their good pal split with all the cash. Oaks and Hawk - a gay couple - then decide to use the couple the same exact way Adam had; to get them to Mexico.

Of course, Adam isn't actually dead. He returns to try to run them off the road into a ravine, sends his buddies over a mountainside in a flaming truck and then it's back to business as usual. Right outside of Mexico, he's now more determined than ever to get a piece of Eve's "gilded ass," even if it kills him... Can Walter and Eve turn the tables on him before it's too late?

This uneven exploitation thriller gives us some good with some bad. For starters, the cinematography and scenic outdoor locations are both excellent and there's enough tension, action and lovely Clery nudity to keep one watching. Ennio Morricone contributes a good score and, to contrast the violence, an upbeat pop song has been inserted here and there, which is actually quite a brilliant and amusing little touch. The ending is also pretty unpredictable, although somewhat unsatisfying all the same. On the downside, the characters are so flagrantly unlikable that it becomes tiresome listening to them constantly bickering.

Nero gives an intense performance under the circumstances and French actress Clery (who'd just had some success with the erotic hit The Story of O) is quite good herself. Last House on the Left star Hess, on the other hand, gives an extremely over-the-top (and quite irritating) performance as the psycho. His dialogue delivery seems off half the time and he constantly yells and snarls, and laughs like Woody Woodpecker after nearly every line. He'd go on to play another sleazy psycho / rapist in the Italian production House on the Edge of the Park (1980) a few years later. Aldo Crudo adapted the novel "The Violence and the Fury" by Peter Kane. Though set in the U.S. (and ironically enough, it was never theatrically released here), this was actually filmed in Italy and they do a surprisingly good job of camouflaging it.

The Anchor Bay DVD comes with the 17-minute featurette The Devil Thumbs a Ride (filmed in 2002), which features interviews with all three stars. Nero's hand really was broken when he filmed, from punching a horse on the head (!!) while filming the western Keoma (1976).

★★1/2

Ercole al centro della terra (1961)

... aka: Hercules at the Center of the Earth
... aka: Hercules in the Center of the Earth
... aka: Hercules vs. the Vampires
... aka: Sword and Sandal
... aka: Vampires vs. Hercules, The

Directed by:
Mario Bava

Story-wise, this is your standard issue peplum fantasy-adventure. Aesthetically, however, it's a whole other story. Though some feel that Bava's talents were squandered doing a lightweight, juvenile film like this, his vivid and intoxicating use of color and talent for staging scenes for maximum atmosphere on a minimal budget were the perfect touch for something just like this, resulting in a fun, harmless little romp that also happens to be quite beautiful. There were dozens of similar films produced in Italy following former Mr. Universe Steve Reeves' turns in the successful Hercules (1958) and Hercules Unchained (1959). The title role was frequently re-cast for some reason, with Brad Harris, Kirk Morris, Alan Steele, Mark Forest, Richard Harrison, Gordon Scott, Dan Vadis, Peter Lupus and Mickey Hargitay all getting their turn to flex their muscles and fight the forces of evil. This one features bearded muscleman Reg Park, an amiable three-time Mr. Universe, who also got to play the role in Hercules and the Captive Women (1961) and Hercules the Avenger (1964). As an added bonus for genre fans, Christopher Lee is on hand to smirk, grimace and scowl as he does various dirty deeds as the evil ruler of an underworld kingdom.

Beautiful Princess Deianira (Leonora Ruffo) is slated to take rule over her kingdom when something strange happens: she suddenly goes out of her mind. After her beloved Hercules ("... not even the thunderbolts of Jobe will prevent our marriage!") finds her wandering in the garden spouting various nonsense, he goes to King Lico (Lee) to try to figure out what's going wrong, Lico, who has a whole other agenda in mind, informs him that everyone in the village is cursed; doomed to die, and there's nothing he can do about it. Undaunted, Hercules goes to some masked woman to find out what he can do to break the spell Deianira is under. To save the woman he loves he must acquire the shining Stone of Pluto located in Hades / Hell / "The Kingdom of the Dead." But one cannot go to Hades unless they are already dead... unless they have a special golden apple located in the land of the Hesperides, which is ruled over by lethal women condemned to live in eternal darkness by the Gods. But one cannot go to the land of the Hesperides... unless he has a special / magical boat that can sail against the win to take them there. Seems like Herc and company will have their work cut out for them.

Our super-strong hero enlists the aid of his blonde-haired, comparatively scrawny BFF Theseus (George Ardisson) - no guess as to who is the top and who is the bottom in this particular relationship - in his quest. For some reason that defies logic (but does provide highly annoying "comic relief"), useless bumbling idiot Telemachus (Franco Giacobini) also decides to tag along. After a battle with an axe-wielding giant who threatens to quarter one of them with four horses, they get the ship they need to begin their journey. In the land of eternal darkness, there's a downpour of fire from the heavens above and encounters with Queen Aretusa (Marisa Belli), ruler of the cursed women, and Procrustes, which sounds like a cure for athlete's foot but is actually just a clunky monster made of rock who speaks in a hilariously slow voice. Defeating Procrutes opens the Gates of Hell and there our heroes must get past a fiery ocean and branches that bleed and then traverse a pit of bubbling lava. Hercules manages to get the shiny rock while Theseus encounters the lovely Persephone (Ida Galli) and is instantly smitten.

The stone manages to return Deianira to her senses, but more problems soon arise. Theseus unwisely decided to smuggle Persephone aboard their ship on the return trip home, which has greatly angered Persephone's father, Pluto. Pluto promptly lays waste on the countryside, causing one natural disaster after another. Theseus' refusal to give up his new love pits amigo against amigo. Meanwhile, power-mad Lico is informed by the Gods that he needs to drink Deianira's blood to become the "king for all eternity." If the ritual is carried out, poor Deianira will become a creature of the damned. Hercules must not only face off against Lico to save his future bride, but also a legion of resurrected zombies.

Hampered by the loose, almost episodic nature of the plot and extremely corny dramatics, this is still worth checking out strictly for Bava's visual presentation, clever optical trickery and beautiful cinematography. The sets, costumes, props and special effects are all good. Lee - who, like the rest of the cast, was dubbed - appears to really be enjoying his villain role. He'd also appear in Bava's Gothic horror masterpiece THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963), which also co-starred Galli. Sexy Eurotrash favorite Rosalba Neri is often credited as playing Deianira's handmaiden Helena on cast lists, but that is definitely not her in the role. In fact, I don't recall seeing her anywhere in the film. If she is, she's either playing the masked woman or one of Aretusa's underlings. Though Bava is credited as sole director on the print I viewed, IMDb lists Franco Prosperi (one of four credited writers, along with Bava) as co-director.

The pristine Image DVD (which features a trailer, stills gallery and Italian or English language / subtitle options) uses the Hercules in the Haunted World title for packaging but the print itself is called Hercules in the Center of the Earth.

★★1/2

Greta - Haus ohne Männer (1977)

... aka: Greta, la donna bestia
... aka: Greta, the Mad Butcher
... aka: Greta, the Sadist
... aka: Greta, the Torturer
... aka: Ilsa: Absolute Power
... aka: Ilsa: Ultimate Perversion
... aka: Wanda the Wicked Warden

Directed by:
Jesus Franco

Dyanne Thorne is back as a sadistic, domineering bitch who gets her jollies torturing naked young women in this sleazy Swiss / West German cash-in on Thorne's highly successful Ilsa series. Despite Thorne's character being named Greta in this one, the film was released in the U.S. as Ilsa, the Wicked Warden for obvious reasons, but elsewhere as Wanda, the Wicked Warden for reasons that aren't quite so obvious. After several minutes of gratuitous full frontal female nudity in a groupie shower scene as well as Thorne showing off her spectacular figure in a bubble bath, Rosa Phillips (Esther Studer) manages to escape into the jungle. A few guys armed with rifles head out after her. Rosa slits one's throat before being shot in the back. She manages to hide out in a cave until the coast in clear and then hobbles along to the doorstep of Dr. Milton Arcos (Franco) and passes out. He brings her inside, where she deliriously pleads for "No more shock treatment!" Greta and her guards soon show up to take the girl back to where she escaped from and claim she dies two weeks later, supposedly of a rare blood disease.

Greta runs the Los Palomas Clinic, which was "established for treating sexual deviations in women; harmless abnormalities such as nymphomania, lesbianism, prostitution..." The institute is highly secretive and is run exactly like a maximum security prison.... only worse! No visitors are allowed inside, no patients are allowed outside and the entire staff seems to be in on making the patients' lives as miserable as possible. Dr. Arcos holds a press conference questioning the clinic and asking for an investigation into their practices, but all the red tape is holding things up. Abbie (Tania Busselier), Rosa's vengeful sister, doesn't have the patience to wait and gets Dr. Arcos to write up a false diagnosis to have her committed to Los Palomas (under the name "Abolina Garcia"). Her first day there, she's stripped by a pair of butch guards, who make fun of her small breasts and "pubic nest" being infested with crabs and then spray her face, crotch and ass with a fire hose. She's then given a short button-up, but no panties, and is taken to the dorms.

The clinic forbids the use of real names and if you slip they brand the number on your "ta-tas" lest you forget. Abbie is called "Number 41" and then goes to meet the other patients. One girl won't stop singing, another cries constantly and "Number 14" (Peggy Markoff) has anger issues, furiously knits and claims to have been a man at one point in her life. The queen bee of the dorms is the tough dyke Juana (Lina Romay), who bullies all of the other women and has her way with whoever she wants. But while Juana may be at the top of the pecking order among the patients, she's still at the whim of Greta, who forces her to give her massages and then uses her as a human pincushion. Still, Juana gets special privileges for the arrangement, like cigarettes and none of the harsher tortures. After getting into a cat fight with Juana for refusing to wash her "cholo" in shower, Abbie is taken to Greta, who immediately shoots acid into her vagina with a syringe, gives her shock treatment and then chains her up in solitary confinement.

The plot ultimately seems to be trying to make some kind of political statement (some of the prisoners kept in solitary in the basement are revolutionaries; a terrorist is assassinated and check the graffiti on the bathroom walls) but it's so scattershot and unfocused no one's really going to care, least of all the target audience for something like this. To up the sleaze quotient, naked ladies in the basement are whipped and administered electric shocks to the nipples, Romay's character makes a woman lick her "culo" (ass) right after she gets off the toilet and Greta occasionally likes to bring in depraved male sex offenders to rape some of the women. Her assistant, Dr. Rego (Eric Falk), tapes these sessions and then sells them to a collector, who's wanting more and more extreme stuff and offers to pay top dollar for a snuff film. The dialogue is often hilariously crude and raunchy ("Piss off you blonde bitch and you can take your brother, jack him off and shove him up your stinking ass!") and this is much more entertaining than the director's other 'captive women' efforts.

Franco's WOMEN WITHOUT INNOCENCE (1977), filmed the same year for the same producer and featuring many of the same actresses, had an identical setting (a nuthouse full of sexually confused women) and recycled many of the scenes and characters from this one.

There's an interesting commentary track on the Anchor Bay DVD with Thorne and husband Howard Mauer, who plays a small role as an officer. Both have (mostly) nice things to say about the director but she states she had a no frontal nudity clause in her contract but Franco snuck and filmed some with her anyway and that he pretty much just made all of this up as they went along. Apparently, this was also pitched to its star as a true story about real-life snuff filmmakers working out of a psychiatric clinic (which ended up being just a tiny subplot in the finished product) and that she had to change her hair color to red so people wouldn't assume that she was playing Ilsa again (though that ended up happening anyway thanks to several later title changes).

★★1/2