Actualités

Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi achieved notoriety in 1962 with the sensationalistic documentary Mondo Cane, a globetrotting exposé of bizarre rites and other human grotesqueries that opened the floodgates for a deluge of Mondo titles. When the release of their 1966 film Africa Addio (a.k.a. Africa: Blood and Guts), a despairing look at the continent’s decolonization movements, led to accusations of racism, Jacopetti and Prosperi sought to address the charges by revealing (some would say reveling in) the history of slavery in America. The resulting film, Goodbye Uncle Tom, is an extremely disturbing, at times almost unwatchable, descent into the inferno of an unpardonable institution.

Goodbye Uncle Tom leaves any pretense of objectivity behind in the dust. Using a conceit similar to such Peter Watkins classics as Culloden and The War Game, Jacopetti and Prosperi’s film brings modern-day documentary technology back into a historical setting, using it in...

Stars: Benjamin L. Newmark, Nick Wilson, Arlene Lagos, Tristen Amason, Bruce Peoples, Laronn Marzett, Vanesa Tamayo | Written by Lauren Pritchard, Joe Roche | Directed by Christopher Ray

Attack of the Meth Gator lets you know what you’re in for right from the start as cops raid a Florida meth lab only to have its operators make a run for it. As Shane wades across the swamp, he drops a bag of meth. That’s when we see a giant gator’s snout twitch as if it’s smelling something. Then it goes straight for the meth, then goes for Shane, and one of the cops in a drug-induced frenzy.

In response, Mayor Jensen (Nick Wilson) hires Skylar and Twain (Tristen Amason) to take care of the gator discreetly, and before the tourists start arriving for the Memorial Day Weekend. Needless to say, they quickly become gator chow instead. Sheriff Williams...

Stars: Dawna Lee Heising, Erik Anthony Russo, Sophiah Koikas | Written and Directed by Dustin Ferguson

Despite the name, Cocaine Cougar is not about the women down at the corner bar. It’s another microbudget attempt to cash in on Cocaine Bear, but unlike Cocaine Shark, this one actually involves cocaine. On the other hand, there is no such thing as a black cougar. But I suppose cocaine panther didn’t have the same ring to it.

After a title card tell us that this is based on true events and several minutes of the camera prowling through the woods we get several minutes of credits intercut with stock footage of a lab where animals are being experimented on. This normally wouldn’t matter that much, except Cocaine Cougar runs for fifty minutes including credits so by the time we’re told a black cougar has escaped from the lab and...