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In 1866, Gustave Courbet painted The Origin of the World, a portrait of a woman’s nude torso and exposed vagina that still possesses the capacity to shock the straitlaced. On one level, the painting proves pretty definitively that there’s a fine line between a timeless work of art and a beaver shot. On another, it provides a convenient precursor for the cinematic sensibility of Spanish maverick Jess Franco, who seemingly never met a pussy he didn’t want to zoom unabashedly in on. This holds especially true for Lorna the Exorcist, wherein the female genitalia play a significant thematic as well as aesthetic role.

For what it’s worth, the film bears only the slightest passing resemblance to the William Friedkin classic that it’s ostensibly ripping off. Both films focus on a character located on the cusp between childhood and womanhood (though here she’s a bit of...

Hello, everyone! We’re back with the final round of horror and sci-fi home media releases for the month of August, and we’ve got quite a few killer titles headed home today. Scream Factory is giving Paul Schrader’s Cat People remake a 4K overhaul in a brand-new Collector’s Edition release, and Severin Films is keeping busy with several titles today as well, including All About Evil and Fearless, and if you haven’t had a chance to check it out for yourself yet, Jane Schoenbrun’s extremely unsettling We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is headed to Blu-ray this week as well.

Other titles being released on August 30th include Arrow Video’s Giallo Essentials: 3-Disc Limited Edition Collection, Lux Aeterna, Satan’s Children, Jack Be Nimble featuring Alexis Arquette, The Oregonian, Raw Nerve, and Shriek of the Mutilated.

All About Evil: 2-Disc Special Edition

It's...

Shining Sex 1 Blu-ray disc Label: Severin Films Preorder: 7/28/20 Street: 8/25/20 Msrp: $29.98 Upc: 663390003909 Catalog #: SEV93909 MPAA Rating: Nr Genre: Erotica Color, 106 minutes in English Anamorphic Widescreen 2.39:1 Dolby Digital Mono Region: All Production year: 1977 Director: Jess Franco Cast: Lina Romay, Evelyne Scott, Monica Swinn Shining Sex 1 DVD disc …

The post Cav and Severin Films’ August 2020 Release of Shining Sex – Jess Franco’s sci-fi sex shocker, restored and uncensored for the first time ever! appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

Severin Films presents Cries Of Pleasure – Director Jess Franco’s most erotically daring work. Cries of Pleasure 1 Blu-ray disc Label: Severin Films Prebook: 1/28/20 Street: 2/25/20 Msrp: $29.98 Upc: 663390003442 Catalog #: SEV93442 Genre: Erotica Color, 87 minutes in Spanish with English subtitles Region All. Widescreen Anamorphic 2.35:1 Dolby Digital Mono Production year: 1982 Director: Jess Franco Cast: Lina Romay, Rocío Freixas, Antonio Mayans aka Robert …

The post Cav & Severin Films present Cries Of Pleasure – Releasing late February 2020. appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

To say that Spanish director Jess Franco’s filmography is daunting is an understatement. With over 200 directing credits and nearly the same as a writer, he was a cinematic shark who always kept moving, from the early ’60s until his death in 2013. Often making up to five or six films a year, Franco remade, recut, and redefined certain pictures for certain markets, tailoring material to fit the needs at the time. (I’m not a scholar, but I’m guessing there’s a lot of overlap in his IMDb credits.) At least for one project, the cutting stops with Severin Films’ terrific release of The Sadist of Notre Dame (1979), an interesting character study in depravity, sin, and redemption that Franco considered his most personal film.

Sadist started out as Exorcism (’75), the age-old tale of a defrocked priest (Franco) stalking and killing a group of swingers in Paris who stage mock satanic rituals in between orgies.

With the Halloween season finally upon us, that we’ve got a ton of horror and sci-fi titles headed our way via VOD and various digital platforms throughout the month of October. Things kick off with the 1992 horror comedy Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which hits Digital HD for the first time ever on October 2nd. The very next day, Cult of Chucky, Super Dark Times, The Forlorned, and Realive all make their respective debuts, and just a few days later the holiday horror flick Better Watch Out arrives on October 6th.

October 10th is another busy day, with the digital releases of Wish Upon, Dementia 13, The 13th Friday, War for the Planet of the Apes, and Wes Craven’s cult classic Summer of Fear, and for those looking to spend their Friday the 13th at home, you’ve got M.F.A., Brawl in Cell Block 99, and the Psycho-themed documentary 78/52 to look forward to.

Horror film writer and filmmaker Chris Alexander returns behind the camera with the third film in his vampire Irina saga, Blood Dynasty, and you can now watch the hypnotically haunting trailer for the new movie ahead of its release this Halloween from Castle Films.

"Blood Dynasty was written and directed by Chris Alexander (Queen of Blood, Blood For Irina) and features a cast of upcoming talented actors including Shauna Henry, Cheryl Singleton, Holly Riot and Andre Becker.

Castle Films will be releasing Blood Dynasty on VOD and Digital HD on October 31, 2017.

Synopsis: Blood Dynasty is the third in Alexander’s “Irina” vampire film cycle, that began with 2012’s award winning Blood for Irina and continued in 2014’s Queen of Blood. The character of Irina – inspired in part by Lina Romay’s character in Spanish filmmaker Jess Franco’s Female Vampire – is once more reborn, rising from the sea to bring...

Review by Roger Carpenter

I have to admit I didn’t have many positive expectations for this later-in-life Jess Franco flick. I’m a Franco fan, but not a Franco apologist. I really enjoy a good number of his films but recognize he’s churned out some real clunkers, especially the period immediately after 1987’s Faceless. The reputation of Killer Barbys was less than stellar with even hard-core Franco fans generally dismissing the film. So it was that I received a screener from Kino Lorber and popped the Blu-ray in. I figured I’d watch it once then toss it in the corner and allow it to gather dust. At least I’d have one more Franco film for my collection even if I never opened the case again. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised. I was entertained throughout most of the film. This may say more about my...

Apr 28, 2017

Lucio Fulci, Frankenhooker and more in our round up of new horror Blu-rays and DVDs...

So, what’s your personal idea of hell? For this writer, it would almost certainly involve being chained down in the audience of an eternal live filming of Loose Women as Donald Trump waves a slice of tiger bread, forever just out of reach. Yours is likely to be similar, though it would have to be pretty grim indeed to come anywhere near Lucio Fulci’s 1981 career-best infernal vision and perhaps the definitive (obviously other than Little Nicky) cinematic depiction of eternal damnation, The Beyond.

See related Better Call Saul season 3 episode 3 review: Sunk Costs Better Call Saul season 3 episode 2 review: Witness Better Call Saul season 3 episode 1 review: Mabel

The Italian gore icon behind such genre classics as Zombie Flesh Eaters and The House By The Cemetery offers ostensibly a zombie film set in...

Stars: Lina Romay, Jack Taylor, Alice Arno, Monica Swinn, Jess Franco, Luis Barboo, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, Raymond Hardy, Anna Watican | Written and Directed by Jess Franco

Countess Irina Karlstein (Lina Romay) is as beautiful as she is deadly. She is a bloodthirsty vampire of course. However, unlike most who have fallen foul to the curse, she doesn’t revel in her acts of fatal lust. Her hunger for genuine love is just as strong as the hunger for the bloody stuff (as well as some of the other bodily fluids available.). Her quest for both finds her returning to her ancestral home. Unfortunately, her insatiable hunger claims many victims. From her gardener (Roger Germanes) to the local dominatrix (Monica Swinn), no one is safe. With an inquisitive forensic pathologist by the name of Dr. Roberts (Jess Franco himself) and his blind sidekick Dr. Orloff (Jean-Pierre Bouyxou) on her case, you’d...

Tuesday, November 8th is a big day for politics, but on the home entertainment side of things, it’s a relatively quiet week for Blu-ray and DVD releases, as we have only a few bright spots to look forward to. Scream Factory has given Don Coscarelli’s modern classic Bubba Ho-Tep the Collector’s Edition treatment, and for you cult cinema fans out there, both The Initiation and Night Has a Thousand Desires receive a much-needed HD upgrade as well.

Other notable releases for this Tuesday include Halloweed, Bleed, Amigo Undead, and Gorgasm.

Bubba Ho-Tep: Collector’s Edition (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)

Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness) "gives his greatest and most entertaining performance to date", (Premiere) as an aging and cantankerous "Elvis", in this "zinger-filled crowd-pleaser", (The Hollywood Reporter) from writer-director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, John Dies At The End)! When mysterious deaths plague a Texas retirement home,...

Lust, Sex and Death…Sisters Share Everything!” Notorious cult director Jesus “Jess” Franco’s most renowned film is coming to DVD this October! Full Moon Entertainment is re-releasing Franco’s Marquise De Sade on DVD on October 24, digitally restored and remastered. Starring longtime Jess Franco muse Lina Romay opposite globally infamous sexy showgirl Monica Swinn, Marquise De Sade …

The post Jess Franco’s Marquise De Sade comes to DVD digitally restored and remastered! first appeared on Hnn | Horrornews.net - Official News Site...

The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein

Written and directed by Jesús Franco

Spain/France, 1972

Since May of this year, I have embarked on an ongoing exploration into the cinema of Jesús Franco. After first viewing Justine (also known as Deadly Sanctuary), one of seven Franco films released in 1969 (his filmography boasts 203 directorial credits from 1957 to 2013), I sought out more of what this infamous Spanish auteur had to offer. Like Justine, some of these films have been extraordinarily entertaining: The Diabolical Dr. Z (1966), Vampyros Lesbos (1971), A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973), Female Vampire and Women Behind Bars (both 1975), and Bloody Moon (1981). Others, however, have been downright atrocious: Emmanuelle Exposed (1982) and Red Silk (1999), one of the worst films I have ever seen.

The latest addition to what is now a 25-films-and-counting “Summer of Jesús Franco” is The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, available on a new Blu-ray edition from Redemption Films, which has released several other Franco titles.

Stars: Lina Romay, Monica Swinn, Raymond Hardy, Peggy Markoff, Martine Stedil, Andrea Rigano | Written and Directed by Jess Franco

It’s that time again ladies and gentlemen! We are entering the sordid world of Jess Franco. My previous reviews have always been for the DVD versions of Ascot Elite’s releases. This time however, I have access to a Blu-ray player (yeah, one of those fancy modern contraptions!) and I’m going to use it goddamnit! This release is a joint one between Ascot Elite and Austria’s Illusions Unltd. You see, due to the graphic content of the film, it’s forbidden to be advertised and sold on websites like Amazon within Germany. So, HD Franco with an extra hint of sleaze? It has to be good!

Die Marquise von Sade follows Lina Romay (Ilsa the Mad Butcher) in a dual role as twin sisters. One is a reclusive...

aka Frauen Ohne Unschuld

Stars: Lina Romay, Nanda Van Bergen, Michael Maien, Esther Studer, Kurt Meinicke, Brigitte Meyer, Monica Swinn, Peggy Markoff, Peter Baumgartner, Dagmar Bürger | Written by Erwin C. Dietrich, Jesús Franco | Directed by Jess Franco

Lina Romay (Downtown, Barbed Wire Dolls) stars as Margarita, a young woman who is discovered by police naked amongst a scene of bloody carnage. Unable to speak due to the trauma, she is sent to a nearby all women asylum. Unfortunately for her, the staff aren’t exactly too interested in her well being or recovery. When they aren’t trying to seduce Margarita or the other patients, they’re trying to figure out Margarita’s dark secret. You see, Margarita was involved in what she believed to be a harmless love triangle with a well to do couple. Unbeknownst to her, they were using her for more than just her looks, they...

Vampyros Lesbos screens midnights this Friday and Saturday (February 6th and 7th) at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117)

I can’t believe after all these years I’m finally getting to see a Jess Franco movie on the big screen. This weekend at The Hi-Pointe Theater, Andy at Destroy the Brain is offering up one the late Spanish director’s most noteworthy and beautiful films, Vampyros Lesbos, as part of the Late Night Grindhouse Midnight series.

I first discovered the captivating allure of Jess Franco as a child when his Count Dracula (1970) and Attack Of The Robots (1966) would constantly air on the creature feature syndicate. Even as a kid, I was captivated by Franco’s hypnotic, dreamy style and I can remember being puzzled by a narcotic quality I wasn’t used to. It was when VHS tapes were introduced in the early ‘80s that I really sought out his work.

Jess Franco (99 Women, Vampyros Lesbos) stars as Al Pereia, a private detective who is down on his luck and waiting for that next big job. Thankfully for him, he gets a job from a glamorous young woman by the name of Cynthia, played by the ever lovely Lina Romay (Female Vampire, Lorna the Exorcist). She wants him to photograph her husband Carlos Rivas, a nightclub owner played by Erik Falk (Barbed Wire Dolls) who has an eye for the ladies. Good old Al accepts and begins his newest assignment. Unfortunately, things get a little complicated when Carlos is found dead. Al becomes the prime suspect and on his quest to clear his name, discovers that Cynthia isn’t actually the wife of Carlos. It turns out that she and her lover Lola played by Martine Stedil (Women Behind Bars) are working for Carlos’s real wife Olga, played by Monica Swinn...

There are women in prison movies and then there’s Barbed Wire Dolls aka Frauengefangnis from Jess Franco. For most of the move you’re not entirely sure if there is a narrative going on save for the subtle relationship building activities of a group of imprisoned women who feel the need to walk around naked, pantless or, if clothed at all, still showing their entire body somehow. Most women in prison films seem to have common elements and Barbed Wire Dolls clearly shares those elements, but there is also a unique element to this particular entry. It is rather gorgeous. It’s pretty prison. Not necessarily clean, but it is filled with stunning beauties who are arranged in cells that are perfect for physical education.

Synopsis from Ascot Elite:

Franco exploitation at it’s finest!! Sadistic torture and perversion are only a small taste of what poor Maria (Lina Romay...

Jess Franco has tackled many of the classic subgenres and stories especially during the mid-70’s while he always put his own unique sexually explicit, tongue dropping sense of seduction on each movie he makes, he seems to rely on classic tales and great stories of historical fiction with a hint of the fantastic. Never is this truer than in Jack the Ripper from 1976 featuring Klaus Kinski. Franco invents true evil in the form of a well meaning bad guy with a very dark side in his interpretation of this classic White Chapel bound tale. While nobody knows how Jack was for sure that only helps Franco to create his own dark world. It’s got prostitutes in various stages of murder, dismember and clothing as well as a few stragglers along the way who fall victims to homicides of necessity. Ascot Elite offers us the chance to enjoy Jack the Ripper...

When I wrote the first article about sexual violence the other day, I had much reader feedback that opened my eyes to even more films with acts of sexual violence that I hadn’t considered before. In particular, one reader pointed out the lack of male on male sexual violence in the list. This was a very pertinent observation so I decided to write a second list about screen sexual violence to redress the balance.

So please enjoy my second list of sexualised screen violence. There might be a third one if you can suggest enough films!

10. Female Vampire (1973)

Continental smut fest from that old reprobate of sleazy cinema – Jesus Franco. Irina von Karlstein (played with wild abandon by Lina Romay) is a sexy vampire who throughout the movie walks about wearing nothing more than a cape and a pair of thigh high boots. She is not your average bloodsucking vampire.

Prolific Spanish film-maker who specialised in psychedelic gothic horror – often laced with sex and violence

According to the Internet Movie Database, the Spanish film-maker Jesús Franco, who has died aged 82, directed 199 films, from El árbol de España in 1957 to Al Pereira vs the Alligator Ladies in 2012, a record few can match in the era of talking pictures. Given that many Franco films exist in three or four variant versions, sometimes so radically different that alternative cuts qualify as separate movies, his overall tally might be considerably higher.

Born Jesús Franco Manera, he was most often credited – at least on international release prints – as Jess Frank or Jess Franco, though he used a host of pseudonyms, writing scripts as David Khune, composing music as Pablo Villa and co-directing pornographic films (with his long-term muse Lina Romay) as Rosa Almirall. He was a true man of the cinema, whose CV ranged from...

Spanish director dies following a stroke: Best known for his nearly two hundred underground, "exploitation" films "I think I was born because my father and my mother had sex ... ." Nope, that has nothing to do with the anti-censorship lectured delivered by Oz the Great and Powerful and Interior. Leather Bar's James Franco online. The words above were uttered by another Franco, a Spaniard. No, not the foaming-at-the-mouth right-wing military ruler Francisco Franco, but multitasking filmmaker Jesús Franco, aka Jess Franco aka dozens of other aliases, including those in honor of jazz performers Clifford Brown and James P. Johnson. His oeuvre included about 200 films, among them The White Slave, The Sexual History of O, Macumba Sexual, , Emmanuelle Exposed, Vampyros Lesbos, The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, and White Cannibal Queen. The director died today in Malaga, a city in southern Spain, after suffering a stroke. According to reports, he had never truly...

Sad news from Spain. Legendary director Jesús Franco Manera, aka Jess Franco, aka Clifford Brown and a couple dozen more pseudonyms, often took from the names of the American jazz musicians he so admired, has died at the age of 82. Franco suffered a stroke last week from which he couldn’t recover.

His Erotic Rites Of Frankenstein featured a shrieking, silver-skinned Frankenstein’s monster relentlessly whipping a man and a woman tied together over a bed of spikes. It was but one of countless sublime images from the output of the most prolific Exploitation director of all-time (yes, that includes Corman). With a repertoire of over 200 titles, Franco enriched the world of Eurohorror/Exploitation by writing, directing, and scoring a vast variety of films, including masterpieces such as Female Vampire, Count Dracula, Faceless, Night Of The Bloody Judge, Eugenie De Sade, and Venus In Furs, an epic amount of art,...

This month, Redemption films brings us two remastered Blu-Ray HD transfers of cult sexploitation director, Jess Franco, both starring his wife, and umm, f*ck muse, Lina Romay. The first, Female Vampire (aka Erotikill, 1973), is the most lauded of their frequent pairing, if lauded is indeed an appropriate word to describe the reverie the title has for Franco fans. Indeed, it has elements that do sometimes justify an article in ‘Video Watchdog’ written by Tim Lucas, which asserts that this title is “one of the most erotic and transgressive works in the genre.” To each his own, but this is clearly overly generous hyperbole.

Most will come away feeling more like we’re all just humoring the director’s Ted Nugent sized obsession with sex. The other is the 1974 film Exorcism (aka Demoniac), that, at best, is a chore to sit through, one of the hundreds of copycats spawned by...

A Planet Fury-approved selection of notable genre releases for May.

42nd Street Forever (2012) Blu-ray Available Now

225 minutes of pure awesome. Exploitation fans won’t want to miss Synapse Films' latest trailer compilation. This new release features theatrical trailers from the first two volumes with plenty of additional material. Enjoy classic horror, science fiction, action and exploitation coming attractions remastered in high definition. The 80+ titles include such grindhouse favorites as Dr. Butcher, MD, The Pom Pom Girls, Werewolves on Wheels, Savage Sisters, The Teacher, The Evictors and Chained Heat.

The Wizard of Gore/The Gore Gore Girls (1970/1972) Blu-ray Available Now

Something Weird’s Blu-ray release of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Trilogy last year was a minor revelation. The Blood Feast print, presented in glorious high definition, was stunning in its gore-soaked clarity. All three films (including Two Thousand Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red) highlighted superior transfers, but Blood Feast was the standout.

Back in 1973 Jess Franco unleashed Countess Perverse, which has a little something for everyone via its human hunting ground packed with sex, sleaze, and outrageous behavior. Thanks to Mondo Macabro you can nab the official director’s cut on June 12th.

In the Countess Perverse, aka La comtesse perverse (1973, France, 78 min.), a pair of decadent and debauched aristocrats turns their private island into a human hunting ground where they can stalk their naked prey. As each victim is murdered, the carcass is then cooked and fed to their guests; simply delicious! What the unsuspecting visitors don't realize is that they will soon become the next evening’s meal, eventually fighting for their lives in a shocking and flesh-baring cat-and-mouse game. With suave actor Howard Vernon (Seven Women for Satan) and the stunningly sexy Alice Arno (Justine de Sade), Countess Perverse co-stars Kali Hansa, Lina Romay, Tania Busselier, and Robert Woods,...

Hollywood Before the Code: Nasty-Ass Films for a Nasty-Ass World! runs from today through Thursday at the Roxie in San Francisco and Dennis Harvey has a fun preview in the Bay Guardian. A snippet: "March 4 offers a shocking double dose of pure white femininity finding themselves in, ahem, 'Yellow Peril' — miscegenation being something Hollywood could only begin to embrace a few decades later. Frank Capra's atypically erotic The Bitter Tea of General Yen, with Barbara Stanwyck alllllmost surrendering the white flag to a 'charismatic Chinese warlord' (Swede Nils Asther, eyes narrowed), has become a minor classic since flopping in 1933. No such luck for The Cheat (1931), a remake of Cecil B DeMille's 1915 shocker that was part of Paramount's brief, failed attempt to make stage sensation Tallulah Bankhead a movie star. Her gambling-addicted socialite gets branded (literally) in lieu of repayment not by the original's Far East businessman (dashing Sessue Hayakawa...

Lina Romay, whose role as a lead singer with Xavier Cugat's orchestra in the early 1940s led to a career in the movies and a stint decades later as a Spanish-language radio announcer for Hollywood Park, has died. She was 91. La Times reports that Romay died December 17 of natural causes at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, said her son, Jay Gould IV. Dubbed James Franco's muse, Romay, burst onto the genre scene with 1972's The Erotic Rights of Frankenstein and is best known for films such as Female Vampire, The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff, The Mystery of the Red Castle, Erotic Kill, and many, many more. In the Eighties Romay moved from the front of the screen to behind-the-camera as a director of a dozen different films.

Fans of Jess Franco and exploitation cinema today are mourning the tragic loss of one of the biggest stars in her industry and sub-genre, the all too young Lina Romay.

As reported by Video Watchblog, the news emerged today from Spain, where actor Antonio Mayans formally announced Romay's death last week, on February 15th at the age of 57 due to a lost bout with cancer.

One look at her IMDb page and you'll see that Lina amassed quite a body of work to go along with her quite beautiful body. Dubbed Franco's muse, Romay burst onto the genre scene with 1972's The Erotic Rights of Frankenstein and is best known for films such as Female Vampire, The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff, The Mystery of the Red Castle, Erotic Kill, and many, many more. In the Eighties Romay moved from the front of the screen to behind-the-camera as a director of a dozen different films.

I first discovered the captivating allure of Lina Romay 30 years ago in the early days of VHS when I rented a tape called The Loves Of Irena on the old Private Screenings label. It was Spanish director Jess Franco’s erotic 1973 twist on the vampire legend also known as (among other titles) Female Vampire, The Bare Breasted Countess, and Erotikill. Romay spends most of her screen time almost completely nude, strolling about in the fog wearing nothing but a cape and big wide black boots and I was immediately smitten. I sought out more films with the actress and found out she was Franco’s common-law wife and would perform in over 100 films from the prolific cult director including such gems as Barbed Wire Dolls, Jack The Ripper, and Wanda The Wicked Warden (with Dyanne Thorne, it was later retitled and sold as an Ilsa sequel). Romay and Franco had...

Actress Lina Romay, Jess Franco's life partner and muse, who enlivened many of  the Spanish director's exploitation films -- including Female Vampire, a.k.a. The Bare Breasted Countess (pictured above), and Barbed Wire Dolls -- with her particular brand of sensuality, has passed away at the age of 57. Details after the jump. According to the Alt Film Guide, Romay "died of cancer on February 15. She was 57... Born Rosa María Almirall Martínez in Barcelona on June 25, 1954, Romay began her film career while in her late teens. The source for her artistic name was another Lina Romay, a singer with Xavier Cugat's band who had featured roles in movies such as Love Laughs at Andy Hardy and Joe Palooka...

Lina Romay, a pretty brunette who starred in numerous risqué features for longtime companion Jesus Franco, has died. According to online reports, Romay died of cancer on February 15. She was 57. Born Rosa María Almirall Martínez in Barcelona on June 25, 1954, Romay began her film career while in her late teens. The source for her artistic name was another Lina Romay, a singer with Xavier Cugat's band who had featured roles in movies such as Love Laughs at Andy Hardy and Joe Palooka in the Big Fight. (This Lina Romay died at age 91 in December 2010 in the L.A. suburb of Pasadena.) The Spanish Lina Romay's movies, however, were anything but G-rated fare. Her gialli and erotica efforts had titles such as Tender and Perverse Emanuelle (1973), Justine and the Whip (1979), The White Slave (1985), and Alone Against Terror (1987). From the early '70s to 2005, she was featured in more than 100 productions.

Well fiends, it is another week for us to plop down our hard earned dollars for some ghoulish digital entertainment. The week we have an exploitation classic hitting Blu-Ray as well as its remake plus more! Check it out beyond the break.

All Descriptions of the following titles are provided by Amazon.com unless otherwise noted. If you plan on buying a flick from this list, please click on the links provided or click on the cover as it helps us pay the bills around here. Also, unlike most sites, we provide the Netflix widget which we think is pretty convenient to add these films to your queue. If you don’t have Netflix, feel free to click on “Free Trial” and try it out!

Alice in Murderland

Format: DVD

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From IMDb.com – It’s Alice’s birthday and her sorority girlfriends throw her a themed party. Everyone comes as their favorite,...

One of the formative events in my journey toward cinephilia was finding a copy of Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs' invaluable text on European art film and sexploitation, Immoral Tales.  I would open it randomly to a page almost daily and find some of the most interesting sounding films at my fingertips.  I haven't yet managed to watch all of them, I man never manage that, but it gave me a point of departure for exploring the very specific type of of film really only made in Europe in the late 50's through the 70's.  The auteurs given greatest attention in the boook have turned out to be some of my favorites, the kind of people who could make a sexy horror or fantasy film that felt like a work of art.  Sure, some of them were trashy, many of them were over the top, and some even were pornographic,...

We're just two weeks away from Fantastic Fest and the lineup looks nothing short of "fantastic".. pun intended as I'm on the Jury for this section. What's been added you ask?

The Us premier of Lars von Trier's incredible Antichrist (review)

The Us premier of Spanish zombie sequel [Rec 2]

A sneak preview of Ninja Assassin

A sneak preview of supposed realistic horror Paranormal Activity which has been finally loosed after being hidden by Hollywood for a year or so.

Full list after the break includes shorts!

Antichrist Us Premiere

(dir. Lars Von Trier, 2009, Denmark)

Lars Von Trier rocked the Croisette at Cannes this year with his latest beautiful, visceral opus with themes on depression, insanity and arrogance. It's also got talking animals and some truly inspired horror moments.

The Bare Breasted Countess

(dir. Jesus Franco, 1973, France/Belgium)

Jess Franco directs his muse Lina Romay in this surreal story of a...

The organizers of Austin, TX’s Fantastic Fest have revealed the first round of movies playing at this year’s event, which runs September 24-October 1. The festival will be playing dozens of full-length and short films in all genres, beginning with a special opening-night showing of Gentlemen Broncos, the latest from Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared Hess.

Among the fright features confirmed for screening at Fantastic Fest ’09 are: Tom Shankland’s much-praised Brit shocker The Children (pictured); Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman’s chilling documentary Cropsey (see feature story here); Anthony Diblasi’s Clive Barker adaptation Dread; Nobuhiko Obayashi’s surreal 1977 schoolgirls-in-trouble spooker House; Ti West’s early-’80s-horror homage The House Of The Devil (see review here); German director Esther Gronenborn’s psychological chiller Kaifeck Murder; the revenge opus Rampage, from the unstoppable Uwe Boll; Kerry Prior’s unusual vampire opus The Revenant (see item here); Salvage, from British filmmaker Lawrence Gough,...

We just added video from the event; see the bottom of the page...

The 23rd annual Goya Awards (Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars) ceremony took place in Madrid last night. This year, there was little in the way of genre fare among the titles competing for the Spanish film industry’s top accolade, but one of the greats of international exploitation cinema was honored with a Lifetime Achievemant Award: None other than “el tío Jess,” a.k.a. Jesus Franco.

The 72-year-old director/producer/ screenwriter/actor/musician (pictured), obviously not in the best of health, came on stage in a wheelchair pushed by his longtime companion, the Catalonian star of innumerable Franco films, Lina Romay. A montage of clips from Franco’s four-decade career was projected to the massed ranks of Spanish showbiz elite—many of whom obviously had no idea who Franco was and appeared frankly bemused by...