HELLO AND WELCOME TO VHS WASTELAND, YOUR HOME FOR HIGH RESOLUTION SCANS OF RARE, STRANGE, AND FORGOTTEN VHS COVERS. EACH OF THESE BIZARRE GEMS IS SCANNED AT 200 DPI. SIMPLY CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL OF ANY VHS COVER TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL HIGH RES FORMAT. WE WILL BE ADDING A NEW COVER DAILY, SO BOOKMARK THIS SITE AND CHECK BACK OFTEN. WE'D ALSO LOVE SUBMISSIONS FROM YOU. IF YOU HAVE A VHS THAT IS WEIRD OR RARE, JUST EMAIL US AT MADHATTERDESIGN@GMAIL.COM. REMEMBER TO SCAN THE FRONT, BACK AND SIDES OF THE VHS AT 300 DPI. WE WON'T ACCEPT LOW RESOLUTION FILES. WHILE YOU'RE HERE, GRABBING OUR AWESOME FREE VHS COVERS, FEEL FREE TO CLICK THE "DONATE" BUTTON ON THE LEFT. IF ENOUGH PEOPLE SEND US SOME CASH, WE MIGHT BE TEMPTED TO KEEP BRINGING YOU THE COOLEST, HIGH RES VHS COVERS ON THE NET. BUT IF YOU GREEDY, COVER GRABBING... I MEAN... YOU WONDERFUL VISITORS TO OUR SITE, DON'T COUGH UP A DONATION, MAYBE WE'LL JUST FIND SOMETHING BETTER TO DO WITH OUR TIME. LIKE GO MAKE NACHOS. MMMMM... NACHOS. SO HELP A BROTHA OUT AND DONATE A LITTLE DOUGH TO THE CAUSE.

LASTLY, WHY NOT VISIT OUR PARENT SITE (SERIALKILLERCALENDAR.COM). IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH VHS COVERS BUT I THINK YOU MIGHT BE PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY WHAT YOU FIND. OR NOT. I DON'T KNOW YOU. MAYBE YOUR NOT SURPRISED BY ANYTHING. MAYBE YOUR THE KIND OF GUY THAT SEES A COW FALL OUT OF THE SKY AND EXPLODE LIKE A PIÑATA AND YOUR ALL LIKE "HUH, THAT WAS WEIRD." MAN. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU ANYWAY? JEEZ. SOME PEOPLE.

BUT NO. SERIOUSLY. GO BUY SOME CRAZY AWESOME TRUE CRIME MERCHANDISE AT SERIALKILLERCALENDAR.COM. INCLUDING THE SERIAL KILLER MAGAZINE, THE SERIAL KILLER TRADING CARDS AND MUCH MUCH MORE! DO IT. DO IT NOW. CLICK THE LINK.

REVIEW OF DR FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1974)

From grindhousedatabase.com

Sometimes a movie just reads a lot better on paper than it does when you actually sit down to watch it. When I originally read the back of the packaging for the bizarre Italian erotic horror film Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, I thought that this film would turn out to be one of my new cult favorites. Although the film does have a few decent moments, it turns out that the old adage "never judge a book by its cover" is a fairly sound one.

The story centers around our old friend Dr. Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi), who has recently acquired a Neanderthal man for use in his experiments. He has also had some of his men digging up bodies down at the old cemetery for parts to assist his work. One of these men is a contemptible dwarf named Genz (Michael Dunn), who likes to fondle the dead bodies of the women they dig up and is disliked by the rest of Frankenstein's men. The doctor's men set Genz up to be caught by failing to erase his footprint at the scene of their latest acquisition, causing the doctor to dismiss him from the castle for fear of the authorities tracing the print back to his work. Genz is angry because of this and befriends a Neanderthal man of his own in the hopes of using him to get back at his former employer.

In the meantime, Frankenstein's daughter, fiancee, and his daughter's best friend Krista (Christiane Royce) have come to town to visit. Dr. Frankenstein instantly starts to fall for Krista (and she him), but Genz's Neanderthal man kidnaps her while she happens to be in his cavern and Genz himself sets Frankenstein's Neanderthal free. The two hulking men lock horns in mortal combat, while the enraged townspeople form a lynch mob to come after the doctor and his monster.

I wasn't able to explain this film's story anywhere near as interesting as the back of the film's packaging did, but maybe that is because the actual story is really not as interesting as its packaging would lead one to believe. Most of the film just seems to be centered around discussion and even the final battle between Neanderthals seems to last for only a brief time before launching into more conversation. I was hoping that there would be a heavy cult influence on the film, but even the constant dialogue doesn't have an interesting spin on it. Oddly enough, the movie doesn't even live up to its title (as there is not a castle full of freaks to be seen anywhere in this film).

The interesting stuff in the film doesn't even have much to do with the plot. In fact, pretty much everything I liked in the film had more to do with my interest in the female form over anything else. Simone Blondel and Christiane Royce are incredibly attractive women and they are given several opportunities to show off that said form. Ms. Royce's character has one very interesting scene where she bathes in milk, while she and Ms. Blondel share a scene where they take a mineral bath together in a natural spring. By the time the immortal line "Now it's time for your first mud bath" was uttered, the scene had already become one of my favorites.

DVD Review

Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks has been released on DVD through Something Weird Video and Image Entertainment. The film is presented in the full frame format and the source print used for the transfer has a few scratches, but the image is relatively clean. Also included on the disc is the film's original theatrical trailer.

As with most Something Weird releases, the extras on the disc are a wealth of bizarre rarities involving little seen cult films and/or small soft core film reels. This disc is no different, with two different soft core shorts that both contain a Frankenstein theme. The first one up is a black and white short called The Monster and the Maiden and features a pretty young stripper being terrorized while on stage by Frankenstein's monster, who has been hiding in a coffin that is in plain view on the stage. While the short has a fair amount of nudity, the dancing is ludicrous and looks as if the guy playing Frankenstein has had little or no training in it.

The second short on the disc is entitled Frankenstein and the Naughty Nurse. This letterboxed color short features a nurse (whom I suppose is "naughty") that decides to do a striptease while Frankenstein's monster looks on. The nurse seems surprised when the monster become so hot and bothered that he is able to break his bonds, and the short ends with the beast being taken down by the beauty with a syringe containing some unknown substance.

The coolest feature on the disc, though, is the gallery of exploitation art. While I'm not big on art galleries, what makes this one different is the fact that Something Weird has included radio spots for the bizarre low budget films that make up some of their releases. These radio spots are really cool, especially if you are into collecting old film memorabilia (and I think that radio spots are the most under used special feature on DVD's). Of special note with the exploitation art though is that at least one of the posters in the gallery is for the edited and retitled version of the little seen blaxploitation horror film Ganja & Hess. The alternate version was entitled Blood Couple and was terribly recut by the studio that owned it, but it is interesting to see some of the original promotional material for the film no matter what the version was that was being promoted.

APRIL 20 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : THE SEXY KILLER (1976)

Sex, drugs and violence as only the Chinese can do it. When her sister Wanjing is found raped, naked and unconscious from a drug overdose in a discoteque/drugden, Wanfei (Chen Ping) makes it her mission in life to kill every drug dealer she can get her hands on (She says, "Drugs, drugs, I hate it so much!"). She pretends to be a drug-addicted hooker named Sally (apparently, "Sally" also means "kill me" in Cantonese) and picks up a man called "Third Brother" (these are literal translations from the English subtitles, so bear with me) and offers to have sex with him as long as he brings her to his drug lab and gets her high. Once there, she gets topless and stabs Third Brother to death with her bracelet, which transforms into a double-bladed knife. She then kills two other workers after finding out that Long Tou (Chan Shen), also known as Brother Ma, was the man who raped her sister and made her a brain-dead addict (we see her sister in a psych ward room, a drooling, babbling basketcase). Brother Ma's boss (he has no name, everyone calls him "Boss"), a drug kingpin with a limp, thinks a rival organization called the Red Cabinet is responsible for the recent destruction of several of his labs and orders his men to bribe more cops and get the skinny on the perpetrators. Wanfei is unaware that her politician boyfriend, He Jingye (Sze Wei), is also a drug dealer, even though he's an anti-drug crusader on TV. Wanfei's close friend, police officer Deng Weipin (Yuen Hua), also known as the "Drug Smasher", seems to be the only honest cop on the force. Every time he gets a good tip on a drug deal, some crooked cop will call up the bad guys and he looks like a fool when he goes to make a bust. When Deng goes on a bust at He Jingye's house and turns up nothing (thanks to crooked cop's tip-off), Wanfei accuses him of being jealous of her relationship with He Jingye (he actually is a little bit!). Deng's old cop boss, Leifan, now works for the "Boss" and tries to bribe Deng into joining them, but he throws the money back at Leifan and tells him, "You get yourself a good coffin with this money!" Five men with pantyhose on their heads attack Deng and Wanfei with miniature shovels and pipes and Brother Ma cripples Deng with a blow to the head (He says, "Drug Smasher? Potato masher!"). Wanfei then goes after Brother Ma, tricking him into taking her to the Boss' whorehouse, where she talks Brother Ma into setting up a meeting with the Boss. When she meets him at his home, she attempts to kill him, but fails. She is captured and finally learns of her boyfriend's betrayal. Luckily, she doctored Brother Ma's drug stash, so when she gets a hot shot, it's harmless. She then goes on a one-woman killing spree and saves her boyfriend for her final victim in the way-out conclusion. This hyper-kinetic Shaw Brothers production, directed by Sun Chung (THE DEVIL'S MIRROR - 1972; BIG BAD SIS - 1976), is chock-full of violence, nudity and an anti-drug stance that, for lack of a better word, is comical. Wanfei's sister becomes a blubbering, brain-damaged mental patient after only one fix and everyone shown doing drugs is either a hooker, gang member or a disco-loving sweat monkey. Ignore the film's simplistic, moralistic politics and just wallow in the sleazy fun and violence. The most off-the-wall character here is Brother Ma, as his fey, gay-like characteristics disguise an interior that can best be described as animalistic. He not only rapes Wanjing, he hits on every woman he meets, even if all his physical actions and body movements make him look like a total flamer. This film also takes a dim view of the police where, besides Deng, all the other cops are crooked or buffoons (one cop even says to Deng that he's crooked because he gets paid so little for being a cop). There are a lot of visual highlights here, especially the way they hide Wanjing's pubic hair from the camera (by using Brother Ma's excited fist to hide the offending body part). There's also a pillow fight between Wanfei and whorehouse madam Lilly, the Boss whips one of his girls while watching porn on a super 8 projector (he also has a hidden S&M room where he attempts to rape Wanfei), one guy is thrown off a building with a noose around his neck (ala THE OMEN, filmed the same year) and Wanfei's erect nipples are prominently displayed in several close-up throughout the film. The finale, where Brother Ma attempts to rape Wanfei on a sewer pipe and the Boss whips some poor chained-up girl in his S&M room is classic Chinese cinema. After killing Brother Ma in the sewer, Wanfei drives a car through the Boss' living room, grabs a shotgun and begins blowing everyone away, which climaxes in a pretty nifty slow-motion waterbed explosion. She then goes to her boyfriends house and teaches him a painful lesson which he will never forget. This is the Hong Kong equivalent of the blaxploitation flick COFFY (1973, it's nearly a scene-for-scene rip-off!) or THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE (aka: THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE - 1974), although it's apparent that some of the nudity and more violent scenes, including He Jingye's death, have been edited. This is an extremely insane action film that should be seen by all. Also starring Hsu Hsia, Chiang Yang and Corey Yuen as one of the Boss' henchmen. A Celestial Pictures DVD Release. Not Rated. { text from critcononline.com }