Another light week for sleaze DVDs? So it would seem, but there are still a few notables on deck that’ll wreak some damage on your paycheck.  Most interesting in this cretinous crew is The Call of Cthulhu: The Celebrated Story of H.P. Lovecraft (Microcinema), a 47-minute adaptation of Lovecraft’s epic novella about an ancient evil from space invading Earth; what’s clever about the movie, which was directed by folks from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, is that it’s shot as if it were released in the same year of its source material (1926), which means it’s black and white and silent, and utilizes many of the in-camera photographic tricks that early cinematographers used to achieve its special effects. The DVD includes deleted footage and a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Meanwhile, perverts are directed to Nympho Libre (Raunchy Tonk), in which professional idiot Johnny Legend and Toby Dammit of the Swans and Tex and the Horseheads bring together Mexican wrestling and XXX fucking, and offer an unsuspecting public the hardcore debut of the Aztec Mummy. Yikes. Retro-minded degenerates should check out Refinements in Love (Impulse), a little-seen example of the early ‘70s “white-coater” porn film, which attempted to masquerade hardcore action as a medical documentary. The late Liz Renay (Desperate Living. The Thrill Killers) narrates, and among the performers on display is a young Rene Bond, whose scene involves an awful lot of baby powder.

The fresh fish of the week are Do It For Uncle Manny (Westlake Entertainment), an old-fashioned teen sex comedy about two dimwits who have to retrieve their rich uncle Manny’s Rolex, which was stolen by a sexy hustler (Kari Wuhrer).  The pic took top honors at the Fargo and Sarasota International Film Festivals so don’t just take my recommendation. And Kill House is a textbook slasher movie from multi-hyphenate (writer/director/star) Beth Dewey. Lots of teens die, if that’s still your thing.

The rest of the line-up this week belongs to reissues and vault titles. Alpha has Carl Monson’s Legacy of Blood, an amusing spin on the old “greedy relatives try to survive a night with a killer in order to collect an inheritance” storyline with John Carradine, Dick Davalos, and Buck Kartalian, and a fun grindhouse double bill of Carnival of Blood (a Coney Island-set psycho thriller from porn director Leonard Kirtman) and the goony gore-comedy The Undertaker and His Pals. On the classier tip is Cult Epic's reissue of Fernando Arrabal’s psychedelic arthouse epic I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (dig Sleazegrinder’s review here) and Viva La Muerte.

And there’s two expanded reissues out this week as well – Blue Underground has a double-disc “Kick Ass” edition of the bizarre kung fu/head trip pic Circle of Iron, with David Carradine in three roles (including a giant monkey) and Christopher Lee, Roddy McDowall and Eli Wallach all wondering how their agents got them into this one. Over 90 minutes of new extras are added to their original single disc release, including screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, and producer Paul Maslansky. And for some reason, the folks at Tokyo Shock thought the best way to sell their two-disc version of Ichi the Killer: Blood Pack would be to include an interview with Eli Roth. Really – THAT’s your sell point? Sheesh.

– Paul Gaita

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Not sure if this is a tribute or a major studio cashing in on the sudden notoriety of one of its forgotten employees, but Fox is releasing a trio of films this week by director Bob Clark, who died in a car accident in April 2007. Sleaze beasts best remember Clark as the director of several terrific horror movies from the early ‘70s, including Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Deathdream, the original Black Christmas and Deranged, which was inspired by the crimes of Ed Gein (he also directed the insane transvestite drama She-Man back in ‘67), but Clark earned his biggest audience with the teen sexploitation comedy Porky’s and its sequel, as well as the holiday TV perennial A Christmas Story at the dawn of the ‘80s. Fox has packaged together all three Porky’s titles (Clark was not involved with the third and weakest of the films, Porky’s Revenge) in an Ultimate Collection. The version of Porky’s included here is the One Size Fits All Edition, which includes commentary by and a featurette on Clark, as well as trailers for all three films, and even a promo for the Porky’s video game (was there such a thing?). I’m guessing that most, if not everyone who’s reading this write-up has seen the first Porky’s, if not the others, since they made about a gazillion dollars in their heyday; if not, the two titles helmed by Clark are still funny, smutty comedies about trying to get laid in high school. Oh, and Kim Cattrall barks like a dog in the first movie.

Fox is also releasing the lesser known Clark thriller Breaking Point from 1977, with Bo Svenson (then riding high from his Walking Tall Part II fame) as a teacher who enters the witness protection program after he snitches on some mobsters. It’s not spectacular, but watching Bo Svenson whip ass always has its merits, I think.

Also on the reissue tip this week:  Warner is releasing Straight Time, with a grimy and totally believable Dustin Hoffman as a career criminal (based on the real-life former crook turned author Eddie Bunker, who played Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs) who can’t resist one more heist; Harry Dean Stanton and a pre-head injury Gary Busey are his partners, and the super-luscious Theresa Russell (Spider-Man 3) his girl. For fans of ‘70s grit, it doesn’t get more mean and raw than this.  Meanwhile, Lionsgate has a new edition of Roman Polanski’s hit-and-miss Satanic thriller The Ninth Gate (timed nicely to coincide with star Johnny Depp’s latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie), which comes with commentary by the director and some promo material.

Over at MGM, they earn the Pick to Click for the week for releasing The Hills Run Red, a solid Italian western with Thomas Hunter (father of Porky’s star Kaki Hunter, which brings this column full circle,  doesn’t it?) as a wrongly jailed cowboy hunting for the ex-partner that killed his family and landed him in the clink. Henry Silva is great, as usual, as the psychotic gunman hired to stop Hunter; no extras, but it’s letterboxed, and gives you a reason to toss out that crappy bootleg. MGM’s also re-releasing all three Sabata titles (which were previously issued in a three-disc boxed set) – if you’re a Lee Van Cleef fan (and you should be), the Man with the Gunsight Eyes gets a great showcase for his squinty-eyed menace as the gadget-wielding, pistol-packing title character in Sabata and Return of Sabata. Yul Brynner stars in Adios, Sabata, but he’s actually playing a guy named Indio Black who was renamed by MGM to wring a few more bucks out of the series. And speaking of killers, Time Life has Jerry Lee Lewis: Greatest Live Performances of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, which includes TV guest shots, interviews, and even the trailer for the earth-shaking High School Confidential.

And lastly, get your yucks for the week from Warner, who are paying tribute to John Wayne’s 100^th birthday by issuing The Green Berets, in which the Duke (who also directed with Killer Shrews director Ray Kellogg) and an amazing cast of drinking buddies and psychotronic stars (Aldo Ray, George Takei, Bruce Cabot, Richard Pryor, and Jason Evers from The Brain that Wouldn’t Die) single-handedly win the Vietnam War. Honest. And Televista, my favorite mystery bootleg company (anyone EVER seen any of their stuff?) has Seytan, the Turkish Exorcist rip-off, and a double bill of The Harrad Experiment and its sequel, Harrad Summer, under the title Love All Summer. Both are slick ‘70s sexfests disguised as counterculture experimentation, and worth watching for the dated discussions, free-love blather, and oddball casting (Don Johnson and Bruno Kirby in Harrad, and Marty Allen (!) and Bill Dana (!!) in Love).

Also on deck this week: Fantoma has the stylish 1962 Japanese drama Black Test Car, which concerns the depths that an auto manufacturing company will sink to in order to root out industrial spies as they launch a new prototype. It was directed by Yasuzo Masamura, who made one of the creepiest Japanese sex-thrillers, Blind Beast, and comes with the original trailer and liner notes. And while we’re in the Asian department, Tartan has the hit Thai ghost story Dorm, about a troubled kid who discovers that his new boarding school has a few uninvited guests from the beyond.

Meanwhile, Anchor Bay  has Dark Corners, with Thora Birch as a young woman who discovers that she can slip between the real world and an alternate one that houses a serial killer that stalks her. And IFC has Alone with Her, a voyeur thriller with Colin Hanks as an obsessive creep who videotapes a young woman’s every action in an attempt to win her heart. Let me tell ya, fellas – it doesn’t work that way, so don’t rent this looking for hints or anything.

Lastly, Anthem Anthem spits out John R. Hand’s psychedelic arthouse-gorehouse freakfest Frankenstein’s Bloody Nightmare, which pulls out every low-budget cinematic stop (Super-8 footage, saturated color, non-linear story) to give your Third Eye a good ole poke as it chronicles the efforts of young Victor Karlstein (Hand) to revive his lady love through grave-robbing and dubious surgical methods. You’ll either love it to death or pitch a brick through your TV – yeah, it’s one of those movies.

-Paul Gaita

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Just a handful of DVDs on deck this week, so let’s take a tip from Bridget the Midget and keep this short and sweet. Pan’s Labyrinth (New Line) is the Oscar-nominated fantasy from Guillermo Del Toro (Blade, Hellboy), and probably the first of his films to be seen by audiences who don’t haunt the horror shelves; it’s a fantasy about children (specifically, a young girl whose mother has just married a cruel officer in the Spanish army), but it’s definitely not for kids, as it’s often violent, and the creature that she encounters in her fantasy life are pretty disturbing (the guy with eyes in his hands, for one). But it’s a beautiful-looking film, and even has something to say about real life and imagination, and the pros and cons of each. New Line has two versions on DVD – a single disc edition, and a double-disc set with a bunch of features on the film’s special effects and beautiful visuals.

Vengeance is Mine (Criterion.com) is a chilly 1979 psychological drama based on a real-life killing spree committed by one man who butchered his way across Japan in the mid-60s. It’s not a horror film by any stretch of the imagination – there are no clear-cut “good” or “bad” characters, and no motivation is ever given for the killer, Iwao Enokizu (played by the great Ken Ogata), to carry out the murders. Instead, it’s an impassive and disturbing look at the conditions that create a brutal person like Iwao, and the havoc unleashed on society as a result. Criterion’s DVD includes an interview with director Shohei Imamura, the theatrical trailer, and essays on the film.

Wow, that’s a pretty smart movie for this column – let’s get back to the Dumb Stuff before someone breaks out the cappuccino. The Omega Man (Warner Bros.) is the dippy-but-enjoyable ‘70s film version of Richard Matheson’s novel “I Am Legend,” with a jut-jawed Charlton Heston as the last man left alive after a plague turns the world’s citizens into albino zombie types. Heston is, as always, campy-great as the machine-gun-toting hero, and Anthony Zerbe does what he can under white makeup as his former neighbor, now a sort of cult leader for the local chapter of the albino kill squad (the Manson killings were only a year prior to its release, so homicidal cult leaders were all the rage). WB’s DVD is widescreen. Right to Die (Anchor Bay) is a fair-to-decent episode from Masters of Horror’s much-improved second season, with Martin Donovan as a philandering dentist whose wife is horribly mangled in a car accident; outside forces ranging from his shyster lawyer (Corbin Bernsen) to right-to-life campaigners prevent him from pulling the plug on her, which causes the woman to get revenge astral projection-style. Lotsa gore, a touch of black humor, and one incredible nude scene (no, not Donovan) – did the director of Wrong Turn really make this too?

Speaking of celebrity skin, Sybil Danning is on display (and how) in the head-spinning They’re Playing With Fire (Anchor Bay), which makes a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of ‘80s schlock by mixing teen tease exploitation with a slasher movie subplot. The lovely Ms. Danning is a rich married professor who’s banging her lucky student in order to pin the murder of her relatives on him. Delirious cheese-sleaze from start to finish from director Howard “Hikmet” Avedis (the jaw-dropping Mortuary), and co-starring an all B-movie cast, including Andrew Prine (Simon, King of the Witches) and Alvy Moore from Green Acres!

And Black Kiss (a.k.a. Synchronicity; Tokyo Shock) is a 2004 serial killer thriller from Japan about a young model-to-be who sees a vicious murder; the psychopath, whose calling card is a black lipstick lip print, then turns his attention to the witness by killing off those around her. Tokyo Shock’s DVD includes deleted scenes and several making-of featurettes.

-Paul Gaita

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Picks to Click:  At the risk of sounding like any of the countless horror nerds trolling the internet, '70s and '80s sleaze from the Continent always wins the top spot from me, so if you don't need muttonchops, naked Spanish girls, and fuzztone guitars, you'll be disappointed with this week's Picks to Click. (Of course, we're all disappointed in YOU if you don't like those things.) Deimos/BCI has a pair of uncut Paul Naschy chillers - you know Mr. Naschy best as El Hombre Lobo, the drooling, massively ripped werewolf from Night of the Howling Beast, The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman, and plenty of other horror titles, which invariably endured a horrible vocal dub and erratic re-edits before making it to

Meanwhile, there's '80s smut from Jess Franco to be had from Severin Films. The Sexual Story of O (which has nothing to do with the Just Jaeckin film or book) stars Alicia Principe as an innocent young girl who is seduced and then sold as a sex slave by her perverted neighbors, while The Inconfessable Orgies of Emanuelle (whatta title!) has the incorrigible title character (an in-name-only relation to the Sylvia Kristel and Laura Gemser characters) indulging in sex games with her husband and a marquis. Both are plot-free sex fests with beautiful photography and women who look good without their clothes, so unless you're looking for top-drawer Franco like Venus in Furs, you'll be mighty happy with these discs. And ole Uncle Jess even contributes interviews about the films on both discs. 

And I'm also going to give a tip of the skullcap to the White Slave Collection (Bloody Earth Films), but to only two of the three films included in this set. Naked Amazon is a very early mondo-style travelogue, complete with the condescending attitude of the later Italian movies, while White Slave is a mid-80s Italian cannibal title from Mario Gariazzo (it's been released under the title Amazonia by Media Blasters), and it's more of the animal butchery and lunkheadedness we've come to expect from that particular subgenre. But I know both of those kinds of movies have their fans, so I'm gonna give 'em the glad hand - but not so to the third movie in this combo platter of putridness, Sacrifice of the White Goddess. It's some shot-on-video nonsense from the mid-90s. Don't bother. 

Kid's Stuff: I never dug the Japanese animated series Voltron as much as, say, Star Blazers, but the giant robot action show has developed a serious cult following over the years, especially among the hip-hop community (ol' Voltron gets his props on many a rap platter). Collection Three (the Green Lion edition, for those in the know), from AnimeWorks) compiles 14 episodes from the series on a three-disc set. And from the Way Back Machine comes Jason of Star Command - The Complete Series (BCI), the live-action sci-fi kids' series from the mid-70s with reigning grindhouse champs Sid Haig and Tamara (Cleopatra Jones) in its cast! Oh yeah, and James Doohan from Star Trek and Jonathan Harris from Lost in Space, too. Lotsa extras in this set, including commentary, promo reels, and a making-of documentary.  

Asia: Shinsengumi: Assassins of Honor (Animeigo) is a 1969 samurai pic with Toshiro Mifune as one of the leaders of a strict group of warriors assembled to protect the shogunate in 19^th century Japan; Linda Linda Linda (Viz) is a really fun and endearing comedy-drama about a trio of Japanese schoolgirls in a garage rock band who have to overcome the loss of their lead singer in order to  compete in their school's talent show; Arang (Tartan) is a Korean horror/ghost thriller about a detective investigating a rash of gruesome murders which appear to be connected to deaths that occurred ten years prior; Blind Woman's Curse (Discotek Media) stars the great Meiko (Lady Snowblood, Female Convict Scorpion) Kaji as a female yakuza boss who finds herself the target of a vengeful woman blinded by Kaji years before. Teruo Ishii (Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf) directs; Heaven and Hell (Shaw Bros. Special Edition) (Image) is a jaw-dropping mix of supernatural fantasy, romance, and musical (!) from Chang Cheh (Five Deadly Venoms), and features the improbably sight of Alexander Fu Sheng and David Chiang lip-synching to pop songs alongside a trip to Buddhist Hell that's more startling than a whole fleet of Coffin Joe head trips; and Cat Girl Kiki (Asian Pulp Cinema) is Japanese weirdness from the makers of Legend of the Doll, about a sexy action figure that comes to life - here, a lonely young man adopts a stray kitten, which turns into a full-fledged girl with ears and a tail. I'll leave the rest to your filthy imagination. 

Speaking of filthy, in the Last But Not Least Department, there's Skin in the Sixties (Secret Key), a trio of softcore smut pics, including The Madam, with the buxotic Uschi Digart, and L'Amour De Femme, a lesbian tongue-tangler by Nick (Crazy Fat Ethel II) Phillips.

-Paul Gaita

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Pick to Click: Prepare to have your Third Eye scrubbed good by the nine hundred hands of God after you pop the multi-disc box set The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Anchor Bay) into your DVD player. Best known to viewers under 30 for his bizarre and beautiful Santa Sangre, the Mexican-born Jodorowsky turned world audiences on their ears in the early ‘70s with El Topo, a quasi-mystical Western/mondo movie/arthouse film about a gunfighter (Jodorowsky himself) who has to combat a series of “masters” in a desert in order to achieve enlightenment. Jodorowsky’s blend of Eastern religious overtones and healthy doses of sex, bloody violence, not to mention eye-peeling visuals of real cripples and hideous poverty made it one of the first midnight movies (along with Pink Flamingos and Rocky Horror) to achieve international acclaim. Unfortunately, El Topo, along with its follow-up, the even more hallucinatory Holy Mountain, was essentially held ransom by producer Allen Klein (of ABKCO and Beatles fame) for about 30 years until he and Jodorowsky recently buried the hatchet. Now El Topo and The Holy Mountain, along with Jodorowsky’s earliest films, the surreal fantasy Fando and Lis (which caused a riot at its first screening) and his debut film, La Cravate, which was considered permanently lost, are presented in remastered and letterboxed DVDs from Anchor Bay. Extras include Jodorowsky’s commentary on each of the films (except La Cravate), several documentaries on the director and his curious life, deleted scenes from The Holy Mountain, and a short featurette on his fascination with the Tarot, which informs some of his work. Topo, Mountain, and Fando are each available as single disc releases, but if you’re a fan, spend the extra dough and get the boxed set, which includes two CDs of the Topo and Mountain soundtracks. The former (composed by Jodorowsky) is a mix of indigenous Mexican music, orchestral tracks, and odd waltzes; the latter is total head trip music from Jodorowsky and free jazz trumpeter Don (father of Nenah) Cherry. Both are perfect for your next inner odyssey – and hey, if you play the soundtrack along with the movie, I think you can hear your own soul.

New: Sex Machine (Anthem) is a raw chunk of horror-pulp about a hitman who discovers he’s been rebuilt from the bodies of other gunmen, and goes on a kill spree to stop the scientists who Frankensteined him from doing the same to his girlfriend. If this doesn’t sound like your kind of movie, stop reading, get off our page, and go Google yourself or something. We don’t need you here.

Or you can check out Gangs of the Dead (Universal), a low-budget zombie pick about two rival street gangs who stop shooting each other long enough to take aim at a horde of the undead that’s taking over their neighborhood. Make of that what you will.

Retro: Putting an entirely favorable spin on the concept of “getting to know someone in the Biblical sense is The Joys of Jezebel (Image/Something Weird), a sexadelic softcore costume pic about the A.D. temptress who is sent to a budget-challenged Hell and plots with Satan himself to switch bodies with an Earth-bound virgin in order to get her revenge. It’s smutty fun from the King of Exploitation himself, David F. Friedman, and it’s partnered with My Tale is Hot, a goony burlesque-style comedy about Lucifer’s attempts to corrupt a schlubby human with scads of scantily clad strippers (including the legendary Candy Barr). The DVD includes trailers for The Devil’s Garden (voodoo, sex, and Satanism in Haiti), Olga’s Dance Hall Girls, and other Debbil-themed spots, as well as the Candy Barr short “Boudoir Belle” and a third movie, the 1944-era all-black-cast fantasy Go Down, Death, about an unscrupulous juke joint owner whose smear campaign on the local preacher sends him directly to HELL! Hot-cha.

Last time I saw the name Rebel Crew Films, they were associated with a small indie DVD company called Rise Against Films and were releasing some excellent Mexican wrestling movies. They dropped off the map after just six or seven titles, but now it appears they’re back with a new batch of lucha titles. Las Lobas del Ring  pits Las Luchadoras (Loretta Valezquez and Elisabeth Campbell) against gangster who try to muscle in on the prize money from an all-women elimination match, while Las Luchadoras contra La Momia is better known Stateside as The Wrestling Women vs. The Mummy, and has the ladies tangle with the Aztec Mummy hisself. Both discs are retailing around $10 online; no clue what sort of extras you’ll find, as the web site for Rebel Crew is bare bones. But if you’re a lucha libre fan, you’ll strap on your boots and mask and find these titles regardless.

Lastly, Tokyo Shock is rebundling the gore-soaked Thai horror pic Art of the Devil with its in-name-only sequel (Art of the Devil 2, natch) in a two-pack for Asian horror fans. Both concern wronged women (a knocked-up girlfriend in the former, and a teacher in the latter) who turn to black magic to get revenge on their tormentors. Expect lots and lots of blood and mutilation, because baby, that’s how it goes when you mess with black magic.

-Paul Gaita