Watched June 8, 2015
1987
Starring: Urbano Barberini, Rebecca Ferratti, Jack Palance
Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barerini) is a modern day physics professor who is regarded as a nerd. His friends treat him like it's high school and he's not very popular. He has a special ring, while driving home he somehow activates it and is transported to Gor, another world.
Tarl is dropped into the middle of a village that breaks out into battle. The bad guys have stolen the home stone, which is somehow related to Tarl's magic ring. Tarl is beat up during the battle over the stone and knocked unconscious. He is then dressed in a tiny loin cloth and nursed back to health by Talena (Rebecca Ferratti). Talena is a warrior princess and represents her people in trying to get their home stone back. She sees something in Tarl and brings him along. First they have to train Tarl to become a better warrior. A group of them begin a trek across the desert to find the bad guys who stole the home stone.
They have several adventures along the way and pick up some more people for their cause. Talena has to pretend to be a slave when the enter a specific village, then she is forced to fight another woman at a tavern. Luckily she wins and they all escape.
They do get to bad guys place and after a battle get the home stone and free Talena's father, who was captured at some point. Just as Tarl is beginning to like Gor, his magic ring sends him back to his world.
Some other stuff happens but that is not what the movie is about. It's about a ton of butts in loincloths. Everyone has tiny outfits and many shots are at butt level. Also another example of English dubbing that mostly lines up with their lips but still seems off. It is an Italian production so maybe it was the case that they did speak English but they wanted more American accents. The technology of Gor is very strange, they have high heeled shoes and locks but haven't figured out wheels. If you like butts and lots of sword fights, this movie is for you.
Watched May 18, 2015
1979
Starring: Chantal Contouri, Shirley Cameron, Henry Silva, Rod Mullinar
Kate (Chantal Contouri) is a professional lady about to take some time off from work. Apparently she is the descendant of a vampire clan, but she in unaware of this. A group of scientific vampires kidnap her and take her to a farm where they keep humans that they milk the blood out of like cows. The scientists are convinced that they just need to awaken the blood thirst that is in her genes for her to claim her vampire destiny. They drug her and perform various experiments to try to convince her that she wants to drink blood.They don't do a very good job of making her like the blood. They make her hallucinate so that she is surrounded by mysterious forces, and they only stop when she drinks blood.
After the initial tests don't seem to work, they let her go back home and to work but then she bites her friend and her boyfriend. The scientists bring her back for more conditioning but it still doesn't seem to work. They invite her to participate in a special ritual, they give her fangs to bite one of the human blood cows and she does it. Even though she has now had some blood, she still doesn't embrace her inherent vampirism. The group also kidnapped her boyfriend and brought him to the farm, one of the doctors tries to help them both escape. The doctor pushes the lady scientist into a blood vat, and she dies. The doctor and Kate escape on a helicopter but another scientist grabs on. When he falls off he falls onto power lines. Kate is taken to a weird basement cave where her boyfriend is being drained of his blood. The doctor says that Kate can drink him, but she doesn't want to. Then Kate lets the doctor drink from her. She then seems to embrace her vampire heritage.
Good special effects, it's slow in places, but overall pretty interesting. The exposition of the story can be frustrating. I did want Kate to escape the vampires and it seems like she resists for so long, so it's disappointing when she succumbs. Since they are constantly drugging Kate it's so confusing what is real or fake for her. If I was trying to turn someone into a vampire I wouldn't make them have terrible drug trips I would make the vampire lifestyle seem really glamorous, but the scientists don't take that approach.
Watched May 11, 2015
1981
Starring: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, Alice Krige
A man in a high rise apartment in New York gets out of the bath but the water keeps running. On the bed, a woman is lying face down naked. The man keeps asking "Who are you?" to the woman, he touches her and she is cold. She turns around the reveal a skeleton face, scared he backs into a window, crashes through and falls out. As he falls, his towel is blown off so you see dick as he plummets to the ground and dies.
Four old men; Ricky (Fred Astaire), Dr. Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas), Edward (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), and Sears (John Houseman) are friends who live in a small town in Vermont. They regularly get together to tell ghost stories as members of The Chowder Society. It was Edward's son who died by falling out of the window. His other son, David (Craig Wasson) comes to mourn with his father and is convinced there is something suspicious about his brothers death. David then shares with The Chowder Society that he slept with Don's financé. David met Alma (Alice Krige) while he was a professor at a college in Florida and she was a secretary. He was seeing someone else but he was compelled to ask Alma out. They went on a date where she put ice cream all over his face, then getting caught in the rain when back to her house from a crazy sex romp. They got engaged but David called it off after he discovered she was a night creeper. Alma leaves David then goes after Don.
Edward happens to be the mayor of the town. During a snowstorm he is compelled to walked out onto a bridge. On the bridge he sees a different skeleton face, scared falls off the bridge into the frozen river.
After Dr. Jaffrey of the Chowder Society also dies, they let the David in the group and they share their big group secret. In the 1920's they were all friends in college. A new lady, Eva came into town and they all liked her. She tried to sleep with Edward but he couldn't which is was severely disappointed by. All the boys got drunk one night and came over to Eva's house. They hint they all want to sleep with her but Edward doesn't like that. Since she was disappointed by Edward, Eva seems into the idea and she threatens to reveal his sex secret but he pushes her and she falls into the stone fireplace. She doesn't have a pulse so they decide to put her in the car and drive her into the pond. As the car is going down she comes to life, but they can't save her.
The house she stayed in is now abandoned, but a mysterious man and boy are squatting there. It seems that Eva convinced them to work for her, even though she is dead. David and Ricky go to the house, but the David falls and breaks his leg. Sears goes for help but crashes into a snowbank and the weird kid bites him. Ricky leaves David in the freezing house because he is convinced that Eva is still trapped in the car haunting them. Ricky manages to convince the police to pull the car out of the frozen lake, just as that is happening she is trying to seduce and kill the David. They get the car out of the lake and her rotted corpse falls out, finally at peace out of the water.
Good example of not judging a movie by it's cover, which made it look pretty boring. The back of the box description didn't help either, so I was wary. It turned out to be pretty fun, the mystery haunting is cool and there is way more nudity and sex than I ever expected from a movie with a bunch of old men in it.
