Frankenstein 2000...Joe D'Amato Joy!!

I was in a Joltin' Joe D'Amato mood yesterday, so I busted out the Raro disc of Return From Death. Bottom of the barrel? Maybe. But I enjoy this final horror gasp from D'Amato.

Briefly, F2K (that is a snazzy way to list this film methinks) is about a hot MILF and her little son and their big lug handyman and the hijinx that ensue when you toss in a trio of raping thugs harassing the nice lady. MILF with psychic powers = Cinzi Monreale! Handyman / Re-Animated monster = Donald O'Brien. Dude that has a lot of money and tries to cover everything up while fucking semi flabby yet sorta hot chick = Maurice Poli. Everyone else is pretty much 1 timers or stumbling trash background players.

Thugs attempt rape. Handyman saves day. MILF moves objects with mind and sees visions of her son having his head removed in weird ways. Thugs return and beat up handyman and attack MILF. Everyone goes to the hospital except for thugs of course and Handyman gets framed. MILF goes all Patrick Lives Again and re-animates handyman. He kills everyone. He squashes a head. He attends a party (in this Germany shot film) at a club called HEIL and everyone is dressed up
with pictures of Hitler all around (??)! And yes, Donald O'Brien has Frankenstein make up. Love conquers all? Not really.

The pace is sort of slow at times and the incompetent actors and dubbing may grate your nerves-but the payoffs are there. O'Brien is hysterical walking with a limp and growling out his lines until it is time to walk and kill everyone.

F2K also features one of my favorite plot devices in a long time. Franco Ferrini must have snuck on set. One of the rapists loses a contact lens during the big incident. MILFs boyfriend actually FINDS it...IN THE DARK!! Luckily for him the rapist RETURNS to the scene to find the lens??? His eye goo is better than a fingerprint according to the dialog!!

Gore is minimal and silly, but fun in a trashy way. The rubber head squash is shown way to many times to be effective as a gore setpiece, but it goes so over the top that I love it. Any movie that has Maurice Poli (in 1991) as Master Cocksman? I love it. Cinzia Monreale as the hausfrau in stockings? LOVE IT!!  Bonus to Laura Gemser for her contributions in costuming there!

Also cool is veteran musician Piero Montanari bringing the BOOPBOOPBEEPBOOP
Fwwaaaaahhhhhhh score. I have it on CD (where the disc says FRANKENSTAIN 2000) and it is vintage 80s electronic trash. It almost lives up to his work on Gangland Bangers and Tarzan X!

The Raro disc looks great by the way, a must for Junk Cinema hounds. Also, there is a fun interview with the writer of the film where he talks about being inspired by Buio Omega and Aenigma. He tells a funny story about Donald O'Brien as well. He was at D'Amato's home and had a fall that left him injured. Not only was he left limping but he suffered some minor facial paralysis. Sounds pretty bad right? Well, D'Amato knew he had found his star now, he could pull off a monster role since he was nursing a real handicap!!

Joe D'Amato Romance Lesson #545

My love for D'Amato knows NO bounds!  I was really thrilled to catch this softcore flick, dubbed in English no less, delivered all the Masterful Massacessi sexploitation sin I could ask for.  But this clip, it takes the cake!

Hell's Angel...the Filmirage Music Vault??

Can anyone ID the end credits music that starts about 10 seconds in to the clip?  It sounds like Piero Montanari to me!



This is from the D'Amato porn series, HELL'S ANGEL!

Do The D'Amato n' Damiano HAMLET DANCE

The end credits of the Luca Damiano and Joe D'Amato porn presentation of Hamlet includes Sarah Young and The Hamlets performing...are you ready?... TO FUCK OR NOT TO FUCK!

Dig it. Hum it. Love it!

Joe D'Amato Porn Openings... THE CREDITS

I've been working on an article on Joe D'Amato's 90s porn output and figured that while I was here we could all enjoy some of that cool credits action they provide.  Well, they provide it for me. All those Fred Slonisko mentions, the career of Kathleen Stratton and so much more. 
First up, SELEN-QUEEN OF THE ELEPHANTS.

And then we have the bizarre Erotic Adventures of Aladdin X, which features a Dunkin' Donuts and Wendy's sign and an Aladdin Busline!

One7 puts some HARD SENSATION in my Exotic Malice

After I finished praising One7 for their EXOTIC MALICE DVD I noticed something weird about the extra footage, and it was also mentioned on the IMDB page for the film.  The "Extra Features" on the DVD are "Deleted Scenes" according to the packaging and menu.  These are not scenes, but scene singular. OK, that is alright...but wait!  The scene isn't from Sesso Nero! It is from HARD SENSATION, which I covered right here.
So, is this a seemingly impossible oversight or...just a way to fill up a spec sheet to retailers and for buyers?  Well...I don't know, but I can note something else interesting.  As with their ABSURD disc (which they put out as HORRIBLE in a very ill advised way of listing the film in my opinion) the inserts (or bonus scenes) are in worse quality than many other available prints.

Here is the BONUS SCENES from One7.

 
And here is a snap from the fansubbed copy I reviewed.  The fake letterbox affect really adds some quality control to this as well.

Joe D'Amato nerd report 194 is now filed, I found this to be pretty interesting.  As a Deleted Scene worthy of cover and retailer solicitation this is pretty underhanded.  Unless someone is trying to rub one out to the good old days of scrambled cable it is useless.

Sesso Nero - Feeling the EXOTIC MALICE of Joe D'Amato

I've been pretty hard on One7 Films releases, but thanks to Doug Waltz of Divine Exploitation I got to check out what I think is one of the best films they have put out, SESSO NERO / Exotic Malice.
I'm a big fan of Joe D'Amato films, be they horror, hardcore, peplum or adventure. Or anything else.
Sesso Nero is anything else!

The Island films, shot on the island of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, are one of my favorite "series" in all of Cult Cinema.  They are mixed and blended with soundtracks, locations and even some story elements, but each adds a bit more to an over all otherworld of floppy cocks, sexy starlets, lesbian log sex, giant George Eastman and even zombies eventually find their way to the shore.  I'll admit, this wasn't something that came easily (sort of like some of the performers in these films)--it took a degree of jaded eyeballing to get here.  Thanks to this disc, I finally have seen this film with English subtitles (and only one massive screen distortion, go One7!) and loved it very very much.
Saying you love a film that has a twitch close up of Mark Shannon's dong may be odd, but I can't lie to my readers, can I?

Put briefly, Sesso Nero follows the final days of Mark (Mark Shannon) after he is diagnosed with prostate hypertrophy and looks at some X-Rays of his well traveled groin region.  If he doesn't have surgery, which will lead to him being essentially castrated, he will get far worse than he already is.  Any "excitement" results in agony in his crotch. THAT ain't good for a character played by Mark Shannon at all!   Returning to the Dominican Republic after what we can assume is a few years, Mark is on the look out for an old girlfriend, Marja.  He bumps into some old friends along the way. But before you can feel any sympathy for Mark, he spends time fucking one of his friends wives!  Luckily, he can rely on big George Eastman to get him more dirt on his lost love.  It seems she has committed suicide (or vanished?) and her father is into Voodoo.  Could his Cock have a DEATH CURSE??  Or, is there more to it?  A game played by someone with a serious axe to grind, and a knife to the balls of a man that doesn't do a lot of good?
Watch and see.

I'm not the biggest fan of Mark Shannon you'll meet, but he is really good in this role.  A cad with a broken set of balls that is out to find both the love he pitched away (thanks most likely to the very organ that is killing him) and go out in a blaze of fucktastic fury if he can't regain what he desires.  The added dimension D'Amato uses with his wife coming after him, and staying despite his rather rough from behind treatment, really lends a depth to how low Mark will go-or maybe he is just a romantic that found out what love was too late.  One thing is for sure, his mortality is apparent.  As the plot winds down to a finish that stays right in line with the cruel fates of most of D'Amato's characters, Mark gets on a skid row down on your luck magic mushroom trip that reveals not only the truth of the revenge being taken on him, but the fleshy price of his casual love demolishing attitude.  He isn't better than before, and only wants love for selfish reasons. That same character goes into a friends home and screws his wife while he is out.
D'Amato proves, if you don't deserve the dick, maybe you shouldn't have it in a squirmy climax of blood that beats out Nekromantik for gutpunch glory.

The cast is uniformly good, I'm a big fan of Annj Goren and she does a great bit as a sort of apparition / vengeful woman.  The sex is hardcore and Goren certainly doesn't shy away.  Again, because this is me we are talking about, I can point to the only disappointing image for this Annj-aholic.  As she taunts Mark by blowing her young lover as he is rendered helpless by mushroom mania there is a moment where she glares at him with his cum spattering her mouth.  Sadly, she can't conjure the same cruel looks at that exact moment, because that would have put the film over the top for me.  So what, I'm all about the sex horror images, and this is a potent one nonetheless.  Also nice to see Lucia Ramirez, she has a bit of the Laura Gemser look to her, but has a lot less restrictions on what she will do onscreen.  George Eastman is only here briefly, but he is just perfect in these sweaty sex films.  But the real stand out (and stand up!) is Shannon.

The DVD is widescreen and anamorphic and filled with hardcore scenes. The bonus / deleted scene doesn't match with this movie and is in poor quality.  One reviewer states it is from Hard Sensation, I'll have to check that out.  Quite good for a One7 release actually, and for the discerning sexploitation fan, and hardcore D'Amato enthusiast, this is a slice of Eurotrash Cinema that bites and slashes back!  The title SESSO NERO is very apt. Black Sex isn't just an interracial thing in the cinema of D'Amato. This is pitch black porn for the fans of weird cinema.

Bonus ULTRA D'AMATO moment, look for the dance number in Eastman's bar.  AMAZING tiny dicked ballet sequence!!!  I loved it!  

Joe D'Amato in a Disney film?? Yep!

Click for proof.

Rosemarie Lindt - A little on one of my favorite D'Amato Gals

I have always wondered if I could find more information on Rosemarie Lindt. I fondly remember her in the weird D'Amato Emmanuelle's Revenge.  Well, here is a bit more for all of us to enjoy.  I can't read the text, but the pictures speak well for Ms. Lindt!

Dirce Funari Casual (un)Dress Tuesday

A long weekend has me feeling like I need some relaxation today...so I have DIRCE FUNARI for all!

Showgirl! Joe D'Amato finishes his final Porn Shot - The Animated Version

I couldn't resist making a flash animated review for my SHOWGIRL review.  The film, and Joe D'Amato, deserve the extra mile.  Besides, here a robotic version of "Athletic Assplay" is worth a click.  Check out the actual review (and it's slightly longer text) right HERE!!


Joe D'Amato and his final SHOWGIRL!
by: Orlof

Showgirl! Joe D'Amato finishes his final Porn Shot

I did it all for history.  It was hard and stiff work...but I had to raise the masts and set sail on the good ship Joe D'Amato Porno once again.

I finally found a copy of SHOWGIRL, the film Joe D'Amato shot in Vegas before going home and passing away two days later!  It was released on DVD in Italy in a rather respectful package as the maestro moved on. I don't know if anyone bothered with my look through all the D'Amato porns (it is just on the back burner-I'll get to it after I can wear underwear again and my sperm count is back to average)-but you get Kathleen Stratton, Fredericko Slonisko, Donna Dane and even Teddy Chuck in the credits-which is a good start.  Sure I was a little down about the circumstances of the film, but other parts of me were immediately UP thanks to Joltin' Joe just doing what he does so well.  
 

While the Cheap location work is evident (1 strip club, 1 apartment, walking around Vegas at night), it does have a stripped back appeal that shows Vegas without the fast cutting and raucous music running over the big lights of the gambling monolith.  Instead it feels like a brightly lit version of a crawl down 70s Grindhouse flicks version of 42nd St. in NYC.  For 80 minutes and 7 sex scenes the ambiance of the exteriors is actually a nice bit of unglam for your eyeballs. 

"Hello...I'm Showgirl...I wanna dance. Hey-Ashlyn Gere?? AWESOME!"

Briefly, we have our one Showgirl, who comes to Vegas to make money. She has a boyfriend. She does her due diligence in a strip club owners pants to secure a job and is sucked (harhar) into a whirlwind (well, a succession) of sexual encounters.  She then decides to go back to her boyfriend, treating him to her improved techniques thanks to all the practice she gets as she works the pole(s) of Vegas.  The end.
Athletic Assplay included.

Uh...over here...I...oh, already busy with a tryout?

Thankfully the ASSistant Manager is on booty duty!

The DVD is pretty interesting, it is one of those "narrated" deals. The film proper is in Italian and not dubbed. Every so often a woman speaks over the film to tell us what is going on.  The best part is that our Showgirl shares both Joy and Sorrow with us during her trip through the underworld of Vegas.  I don't know, she seems pretty happy as a blonde sandwich filling to me.  Go figure.  

Yes...just like fingercuffs!

 

This isn't as groovy as many of his earlier porn films, there is no trippin' through the genres you'll see from his Hercules or WIP or Crime porns sadly.  But he knows how to shoot porn and even had me kind of turning my head to figure out what in the hell is going on at one point.  The lead dude must be some kind of athlete / dancer, he likes to stand on kitchen bars and put one foot on the ceiling and the other pointed down to make a weird, and I'd think moderately dangerous for all involved, water spout effect.   I definitely enjoyed his goofy take on the dancing sequences as well, because I have been to several clubs of the strip variety and never seen that much self love on the main floor.  Ah well, I'm not complaining, it isn't realism we are shooting for is it?  

 

Wow...thanks for coming back to me baby--uh, boy, you sure got some new skills!

It was fun and I learned a lot--but I'm just worn up, down and out!

Eva Henger wasn't very prolific in porn, but the disc bio makes her sound like a star.  She is pretty OK, though frankly she falls short of even Tara Buckman in the acting department.  Seemed comfortable in all aspects of her job, including athletic assplay and vigorous vacuuming of multiple surfaces simultaneously.  I was more impressed by her co-star, Jazmine-whose final film would be entitled "The Best Ass In The World."  

 

Not a classic, but a landmark.  I wonder if any of my Trash Blogger pals can help me here.  I know I saw images (either in an old AVN or a fanzine) of D'Amato getting his lifetime achievement award from the AVN awards.  There was even a picture!  I need to find it, and I wonder if Showgirl was shot during that trip?  The IMDB has Showgirl as 98, but I've long heard that he shot this, went home and passed away.  Also, any of you porn mavens know if AVN put those shows on video?  Maybe there is some video of that presentation, I'd love to see it!!  

And finally--the disc includes some trailers. 1 featured Jazmine (yay) and seemed very standard stuff. However, it had one CRAZY feature. The soundtrack to the trailer is "Another One Bites The Dust" in all it's real glory.  Picture with me...two girls in schoolgirl outfits and man chowder is flying on them in slow motion as Freddie Mercury intones "HEY! Gonna get you too...another one bites the dust!"

Do Do Do Dum Dum DumDUMDUMDOODUM...SPLAT!

Credits of course...YES--TEDDY CHUCK!!