LARA WENDEL GETTING DEMON POSSESSED IN 'RING OF DARKNESS'

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLcQedOC6zYeBT2JkBfQ_T05GWodceFv1PEkEZF9VE4Ls935aJshqQDLinY-omkr7WmHNYImuyVHYENul_SmQhSMUTYKSOufilY_64TfKnJyZ5JtPyFMDks64G5qpCnGXUY8OerEYlPyq8tnK22eOhMktoYKbi7IS7FBP_UP-txb3lTO6tHHjSGnu0XyB/s1300/unnamed.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLcQedOC6zYeBT2JkBfQ_T05GWodceFv1PEkEZF9VE4Ls935aJshqQDLinY-omkr7WmHNYImuyVHYENul_SmQhSMUTYKSOufilY_64TfKnJyZ5JtPyFMDks64G5qpCnGXUY8OerEYlPyq8tnK22eOhMktoYKbi7IS7FBP_UP-txb3lTO6tHHjSGnu0XyB/s1600/unnamed.jpg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Lara Wendel in RING OF DARKNESS Year: 1979 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The bizarre sacrificial-naked-girls-dancing intro to the Italian low-budget EXORCIST clone RING OF DARKNESS has techno-wizard Stelvio Cipriani making Mike Oldfield's <i>Tubular Bells</i> (or John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN theme) sounding like music blasting from a discotheque nightclub... <br><br>Leading to Satan-worshiping mom Anne Heywood already in the frustrated process of dealing with her very evil child... as if RING OF DARKNESS (aka SATAN'S WIFE) were more of its own sequel than a classic horror film money-grab homage... perfectly suited for controversial child starlet Lara Wendel in that she actually resembles Linda Blair...</p><p><span></span></p>

anne heywood, horror, irene papas, italian, john phillip law, lara wendel, marisa mell, seventies, stelvio cipriani, valentina cortese

LARA WENDEL GETTING DEMON POSSESSED IN 'RING OF DARKNESS'

Lara Wendel in RING OF DARKNESS Year: 1979 Rating: *** The bizarre sacrificial-naked-girls-dancing intro to the Italian low-budget EXORCIST ...

ITALIAN ACTION CRIME 'HIGHWAY RACER' AKA 'POLIZIOTTO SPRINT'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGRBSOLnvls6Cr_P7mNWGTg9n4zd0ziEGxsPm52Hqn03upHUg7bp7uz534IWq9xbn8UcmfkOKuiHWPkmvbEui8ZuFVAl9XkaMUtKmmpOLq8zUQjCHV819Vr3vcPd5k9xx4isHDvLVy0udY71NsItzZDErjfIDTWRVDP5Vz8P-wGsSTlkX1D9jwXvYnUHRZ/s1600/Screen%20Shot%202024-01-18%20at%203.57.47%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="858" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGRBSOLnvls6Cr_P7mNWGTg9n4zd0ziEGxsPm52Hqn03upHUg7bp7uz534IWq9xbn8UcmfkOKuiHWPkmvbEui8ZuFVAl9XkaMUtKmmpOLq8zUQjCHV819Vr3vcPd5k9xx4isHDvLVy0udY71NsItzZDErjfIDTWRVDP5Vz8P-wGsSTlkX1D9jwXvYnUHRZ/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202024-01-18%20at%203.57.47%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Maurizio Merli in HIGHWAY RACER Year: 1977 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Stelvio Massi's Italian action-crime-flick HIGHWAY RACER is built around the premise of a cop who'd rather be (and drives like) an extremely fast yet far too risky race car driver, beginning like a sequel that had already properly introduced the argumentative relationship between titular cop Maurizio Merli and middle-age has-been captain Giancarlo Sbragia...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The latter had once been a speed-demon cop on his own (the best sequence is his own Spanish Steps flashback), but now he spends time butting heads with until inevitably mentoring Merli's Marco Palma after his comic-relief "I'm too old for this" shotgun-riding partner's killed during the fastest of several already dangerous chases...</p><p><span></span></p>

action, cop, giancarlo sbragia, italian, maurizio merli, race car, seventies, stelvio cipriani, stelvio massi

ITALIAN ACTION CRIME 'HIGHWAY RACER' AKA 'POLIZIOTTO SPRINT'

Maurizio Merli in HIGHWAY RACER Year: 1977 Rating: *** Stelvio Massi's Italian action-crime-flick HIGHWAY RACER is built around the prem...

DIRECTOR TONINO RICCI'S 'CAVE OF THE SHARKS' WITH JANET AGREN

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0DgOM1pmWx82llJNMnDV6ZgKE5cPkM_kg2avV-2eby0-qgUP9gk4OwFCgztpzsHitfLMmlgHkbMErQEg3l1yfsXqWZONZeoiY6DI1JJzI3To-XiI5sVWFqRI5jGGAJ0Qrnr25D4G0mqJmMpJzNj_Md9NIs0F4DGCpBkO2wnSrlVX7U5iYg6q1x8PUw/s1662/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-15%20at%201.39.32%20AM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="1662" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0DgOM1pmWx82llJNMnDV6ZgKE5cPkM_kg2avV-2eby0-qgUP9gk4OwFCgztpzsHitfLMmlgHkbMErQEg3l1yfsXqWZONZeoiY6DI1JJzI3To-XiI5sVWFqRI5jGGAJ0Qrnr25D4G0mqJmMpJzNj_Md9NIs0F4DGCpBkO2wnSrlVX7U5iYg6q1x8PUw/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-15%20at%201.39.32%20AM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: CAVE OF THE SHARK Year: 1978 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Italian director Tonino Ricci's CAVE OF THE SHARKS seems like a JAWS-clone by the title, but most of the sharks here can't move, hypnotically inactive on the sea floor as Stelvio Cipriani's eerie music almost hits its haunting peak... </p><p></p><p>Only getting weirder in a scene where a group of suddenly possessed young boaters passively jump into the ocean along with a floating, blood-vomiting doll, making SHARKS more a freakish underwater hybrid of THE DEEP,  CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and THE EXORCIST...</p><p><span></span></p>

adventure, andrés garcía, arthur kennedy, fantasy, janet agren, mystery, shark, stelvio cipriani, thriller, tonino ricci, treasure

DIRECTOR TONINO RICCI'S 'CAVE OF THE SHARKS' WITH JANET AGREN

Title: CAVE OF THE SHARK Year: 1978 Rating: ***1/2 Italian director Tonino Ricci's CAVE OF THE SHARKS seems like a JAWS-clone by the tit...

TREAT WILLIAMS IN THE ITALIAN IMPORT 'NIGHT OF THE SHARKS'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjloxEGwCbjmTpaQflBUfY14etbMfG5UnmugkIC61_syzNALPuLbyDOmyd5Us3oRGCyJzWe1Pq_8LuuUw2oLkFJYLRwUlSbgLBI4jiydlhCMSOYFupTAukaQ29P_gZg5SRa9AO5V8o-WWI7HqJgS8sjKZdeu4ni1KFI08leP93QurxMTceXnNQemzfnGA/s2525/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-13%20at%202.32.13%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1296" data-original-width="2525" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjloxEGwCbjmTpaQflBUfY14etbMfG5UnmugkIC61_syzNALPuLbyDOmyd5Us3oRGCyJzWe1Pq_8LuuUw2oLkFJYLRwUlSbgLBI4jiydlhCMSOYFupTAukaQ29P_gZg5SRa9AO5V8o-WWI7HqJgS8sjKZdeu4ni1KFI08leP93QurxMTceXnNQemzfnGA/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-13%20at%202.32.13%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Treat Williams and Janet Agren in NIGHT OF THE SHARKS Year: 1988 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Extremely low-budget imported Italian exploitation involving one of the most familiar potboiler plot-lines: a careless, flaky sibling (in this case younger brother) and their inevitable, semi-deserved death from being involved with the seedy crime world to begin with  — thus dragging their family into a proverbial whirlwind... <br></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Herein a vengeful, tropical-shark-hunting older bro Treat Williams (with sidekick Antonio Fargas, priest Christopher Connelly and love-interest Janet Agren), whose balmy turf is encroached by killers... either the dorsal-finned kind (the deadliest shark actually plays intentionally goading mind-games) or those wearing cheap hoodlum suits... providing danger from the blood-soaked ocean into a machine-gunned jungle...</p><p><span></span></p>

action, antonio fargas, christopher connelly, eighties, exploitation, italian import, janet agren, john steiner, mobster, neo noir, nina soldano, sal borgese, shark, stelvio cipriani, thriller, tonino ricci

TREAT WILLIAMS IN THE ITALIAN IMPORT 'NIGHT OF THE SHARKS'

Treat Williams and Janet Agren in NIGHT OF THE SHARKS Year: 1988 Rating: *** Extremely low-budget imported Italian exploitation involving on...

BO HOPKINS IN THE ITALIAN-IMPORT JAWS-TERROR OF 'TENTACLES'

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLkJEMbbHeRbGyKcxFBQ9nu-55z3Sdtxwaemo-AZ5lDA75MvSa04TdzQBiA6Gq-beGELjXsIhgwEfCrftv_6IjG9cuB7-vamGngU2tobNuVKyp2V42HhymoRF3u-qd7aFSBoVXdEkYzpdpuovW4ds8ihH559l8jL6FzO9bU-SFEpdDEH3oBYC7gMuNCA/s1381/Screen%20Shot%202022-04-25%20at%206.19.32%20PM.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1061" data-original-width="1381" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLkJEMbbHeRbGyKcxFBQ9nu-55z3Sdtxwaemo-AZ5lDA75MvSa04TdzQBiA6Gq-beGELjXsIhgwEfCrftv_6IjG9cuB7-vamGngU2tobNuVKyp2V42HhymoRF3u-qd7aFSBoVXdEkYzpdpuovW4ds8ihH559l8jL6FzO9bU-SFEpdDEH3oBYC7gMuNCA/w400-h308/Screen%20Shot%202022-04-25%20at%206.19.32%20PM.jpeg" width="400"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Sherry Buchanan in TENTACOLI Year: 1977 Rates: ****<br></u></td></tr></tbody></table>The haunting techno keyboard riff by one of Quentin Tarantino's long list of sampled bits of soundtrack, Stelvio Cipriani, opens the 1977 Italian-made JAWS-clone exploitation, TENTACLES, on an ominous level that deserves more praise and appreciation to the overall underrated motion picture it envelopes...<br> <br> With creative camera angles, including a ghost boat being towed in to bay while onlookers both move forward and recede slowly from a reverse crane shot, director Ovidio G. Assonitis, who'd produce <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2017/09/TheLittleHeat.html">THE VISITOR</a> two years later and with a list of cult b-flicks under his belt, works stealthily alongside his stock composer to, like the 1975 Steven Spielberg shark <i>summer blockbuster</i>, not spoil the killer octopus all at once, maintaining some good old fashion implied slowburn suspense in an Alfred Hitchcock fashion...<br>

adventure, bo hopkins, claude akins, exploitation, horror, italian-import, john huston, ovidio g. assonitis, seventies, shelley winters, sherry buchanan, stelvio cipriani

BO HOPKINS IN THE ITALIAN-IMPORT JAWS-TERROR OF 'TENTACLES'

Sherry Buchanan in TENTACOLI Year: 1977 Rates: **** The haunting techno keyboard riff by one of Quentin Tarantino's long list of sampled...