SUPERBEAST (1972)

Directed by George Schenck, U.S.A./Philippines. Dreadful hokum about a well-intentioned scientist whose experiments at his jungle laboratory accidentally turn men into shambling ape-things. Lady pathologist Alix Pardee is called in to investigate and uncovers a glued-on subplot involving a big-game hunter who likes to chase down and kill the lumpy-faced degenerates. This is a pretty hopeless film all round, really. The biggest issue is clearly a deeply tedious script. But the problems also extend to a really bad, intrusive musical score (reminiscent of middle-of-the-road American television) and a lead actress who is not only surprisingly plain-looking, but who also maintains exactly one facial expression throughout the whole piss-poor ninety-three minutes. 1/5.

SHAKMA (1990)

Directed by Hugh Parks and Tom Logan, U.S.A. Possibly one of the most stupid horrors of the early nineties. A group of medical students plan to spend a night playing a dumb role-playing game, but are interrupted by the arrival into their midst of a red-bummed killer baboon called Shakma. Dullness ensues. The script quickly becomes thuddingly repetitive on an almost comedic level; let’s just say that a lot (and I really mean, a lot) of doors get opened and closed in this movie. Meanwhile, the insultingly pea-brained characters behave as though they all actively want to die at the hands of the monkey. At one stage, a character drops marbles out of a window to catch someone’s attention (I’m not making that up.) 1/5.

MONSTER HIGH (1989)

Directed by Rudy Poe, U.S.A. The only possible reaction to this movie is: “what were they thinking?” Somebody, somewhere, at some point, must have thought that making MONSTER HIGH was a good idea. That fact alone is infinitely depressing and really doesn’t bode well for our civilisation. A truly dismal “comedy horror,” this tells the story of average high-school student Norm Median (I let out a long, drawn-out breath as I typed that) and his attempt to save the world from “Mister Armageddon,” a personified doomsday device stolen by a pair of aliens called Dume and Glume. It could, perhaps, be enjoyed by people on the evolutionary level of a teabag, but even they might think it a little primitive. 1/5.

AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS! (1973)

Directed by Roy Ward Baker, U.K. Charles Fengriffen (Ian Ogilvy) takes his bride-to-be Catherine to his family seat (the familiar-looking Oakley Court), but their wedding night goes seriously wrong when she’s raped by a vengeful ghost! It’s all part of a curse, and pretty soon anyone who gets in the way of Catherine giving birth to the phantom’s child is killed off. Gothic trappings are laid on thick in this sombre offering from Amicus, one of their two period horrors (the other was 1970’s I, MONSTER). Good old Peter Cushing is a reassuring presence, but overall the film’s a bit insufficient. Possibly the best thing about it all is Stephanie Beacham’s often spectacular cleavage. 3/5.

ROBBERY OF THE MUMMIES OF GUANAJUATO (1972)

Directed by Tito Navaro, Mexico/Guatemala. Mexican wrestlers were probably the greatest cinematic superheroes of the sixties and seventies. The imagery’s just fantastic: the burly masked fighters themselves, monsters, and beautiful women. Unfortunately, actually sitting through a ninety-minute lucha libre flick is usually not as much fun as reading about it. In this outing, the undead Count Cagliostro teams up with a mad scientist and reanimates the famous mummies of Guanajuato as part of a plan to take over the world. Luckily, Mil Mascaras, Blue Angel, and El Rayo de Jalisco are on the case, along with their female groupies. Sounds great, but shoddy storytelling, lax editing, and a general cheapness undermine it all. 2/5.

THE CHILLING (1989)

Directed by Deland Nuse and Jack A. Sunseri, U.S.A. It’s Halloween night and, during a storm, the power goes down at Universal Cryogenics. Security guy Vince (Grizzly Adams himself, Dan Haggerty) thinks the best thing is to shift all the frozen bods in their pods outside. Bad idea. A lightning strike reanimates the stiffs and soon they’re shuffling around, attacking various characters who’ve been parachuted into the script to contribute to the bodycount. Linda Blair, Troy Donahue, and a moron-on-a-keyboard soundtrack contribute toward keeping the trash-factor high. The action takes a while to get going but, when it does, it builds up a decent head of steam without ever really becoming genuinely gripping or entertaining. 3/5.

CAMP FEAR (1991)

Directed by Thomas Edward Keith, U.S.A. Here’s a pretty bad horror flick with no blood, no suspense, and no thrills. After a good ‘n’ cheesy opening twenty minutes (featuring topless dorm girls and a goofy nightclub sequence), things become much less interesting when a group of female students and their teacher venture into the mountains in search of ancient Indian artefacts. There, they run into an eight-foot tall druid who wants to sacrifice them as part of a weird ritual. If that sounds interesting, it’s not: there’s way too much running around in the woods and in caves, and not enough gore. 2/5.

BESTIALITY (1976)

Directed by George Eastman and Peter Skerl, Italy. A married couple on an island become obsessed with the mysterious Jeanine, who as a child saw her mother being fucked by a Dobermann. Naturally, she now likes to indulge in human-canine coupling as well. After the success of Walerian Borowczyk’s THE BEAST (1975), European B-movie merchants saw an opportunity: what audiences wanted was, clearly, films about bestiality! Possibly the most astonishing thing about the enigmatic Peter Skerl’s offering is that, considering its central theme, it’s definitely not the sleaze riot that it could (or should?) have been. With the exception of a couple of scenes, it’s actually quite placid. 3/5.

DEMON WITCH CHILD (1975)

Directed by Amando De Ossorio, Spain. I always want to look favourably on European horror from the seventies, but this EXORCIST-ripoff really tested my tolerance. A crusty-faced old witch dies and possesses the body of a local politician’s daughter. We then get the usual stuff: levitation, swearing, head-spinning (well…, waist-spinning…), moving furniture, and so on and so on. As expected, a priest with a backstory is plopped into the storyline and the whole thing lurches towards a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. Directed in the most cursory way imaginable by Blind Dead expert De Ossorio, this is possibly the worst of the ersatz versions of Friedkin’s masterpiece. 1/5.

LADY EXTERMINATOR (1987)

Directed by Maman Firmansyah, Indonesia. This is one messed up movie. Meet Rudy, our “hero”: a rapist who can only have sex with his hot wife Irma after beating her up, and who later abandons her when she’s gang-raped. He also roughs up prostitutes and throws his wife from a moving car when she refuses to have an abortion. (She later loses the baby and we get to see a (possibly real) foetus being removed.) And this is the guy we’re supposed to be cheering on! There are lots of tit-for-tat rapes and fights between the protagonists and a drug-dealing gang of scumbags. It all ends when the much put-upon Irma finally gets to let loose with a bazooka. Don’t hold your breath for this to show up on the B.B.C. 3/5.