Sleaze Fiend Magazine Issue #6 - available now...

It's been a while in-the-making, but Issue #6 of Sleaze Fiend Magazine is now available for purchase via Weird World Publishing's Store Envy page.

N.B. There is now a limited additional run of this issue, so if you had previously missed out grab a copy while you can before it's sold out!

Attention: UK buyers - copies available via the Strange Vice store have now SOLD OUT.

After a 4-year hiatus Sleaze Fiend Magazine makes its triumphant return with issue #6. Bringing the readers a very special issue where we dive deep into the early career of Wes Craven specifically taking a look at his seldom seen XXX film The Fireworks Woman (1975). And as a special treat for the film's 50th Anniversary, Sleaze Fiend has discovered the longest running 35mm print of the film and is including it on Blu-ray. This marks its first HD release in Worldwide and also the longest cut in circulation.

Contents include: 

Would You Like Some Cheese with Your Grease?

Empowered Sex Kitten: Sherilyn Fenn

Porn Pirates

Finding the Last House on the Left

Super Star's Super Life

The Story of Hallmark Releasing

Abe Snake Meets the Fireworks Woman

142 Pages B&W + The Fireworks Woman Blu-Ray: $20.00

 

Death Smiles On A Murderer (Aristide Massaccesi, 1973) Blu-Ray Review

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“So many corpses, and every death a mystery.” Most commonly known as Joe D'Amato, the prolific director Aristide Massaccesi (Emmanuelle and The Last Cannibals) only attached his real name to just one of his cinematic endeavours, the turn-of-the-century ghoulishly Gothic supernatural giallo Death Smiles On A Murderer. The Italian giallo movement wasn't best known for rock solid plotting logic, but Massaccessi's film dives head first into a zone of storytelling that can only be described as utterly baffling. Prepare for copious plot holes, taboo subject matter, an ethereal sense of time, and Klaus Kinski 'doing science'...

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Season of the Witch (George A. Romero, 1972) Blu-Ray Review...

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“I thought you were intrigued by it when you were so afraid. Being afraid is necessary to believing.” While it came as a commercial disappointment, the second in as many years for George A. Romero (following on from 1971's There's Always Vanilla), his 1972 film Season of the Witch proves to be an intriguing companion piece to its predecessor. Amidst the fervour of social change that was sweeping America at the time (particularly the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment), Season of the Witch peeks behind the white picket fences of suburbia to witness one housewife's attempt to escape her mid-life malaise – through Witchcraft...

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There's Always Vanilla (George A. Romero, 1971) Blu-Ray Review...

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“Anything that has something happening has a purpose to it.” An experimental bitter-sweet romance drama is not what you'd expect to be directed by George A. Romero, the Godfather of the modern zombie, whose seminal 1968 film Night of the Living Dead not only defined a new sub-genre, but a new way of utilising horror to examine the world in which we live. Seeking to not be pigeon-holed by the horror genre, Romero and production company The Latent Image embarked on this character piece, which turned into a scattered and tense production with a final product that limped onto the silver screen after which it became a 'lost' film in Romero's catalogue. Indeed, Romero himself described the film as “an awful experience and I care very little about it”, but even with – seemingly – so little going for it, There's Always Vanilla now proves to be an intriguing time capsule of Pittsburgh, and America, in 1970...

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Splatter University (Richard W. Haines, 1984) Blu-Ray Review

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“It seems to me that if you're going to kill someone you at least get to know them real well.” From the director of Class of Nuke 'Em High, Splatter University – otherwise known as Campus Killings – is a cheap as chips horror comedy in which a bunch of reprehensible, unteachable college kids test their new teacher's patience while getting bumped off during the new semester. The trailer and 'back of the box blurb' sell it skilfully, but what's it really like – a forgotten gem, a dropped turd, or perhaps a malodorous diamond?

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Nightmare Beach (1988) Mini Review...

What's it about?
The leader of a biker gang is executed for the crime of murder, but when his body goes missing and rowdy Spring Breakers start turning up dead-by-electrocution, the authorities desperately try to keep a lid on things - but the bodies keep piling up.
Who would I recognise in it?
John Saxon, Michael Parks, Lance LeGault.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Directed by Umberto Lenzi (Syndicate Sadists, Eyeball) under a pseudonym, Nightmare Beach was one of his last directorial outings - into which he put little effort (as he himself admitted). Coming in after years of slasher movies, this cheap little killer flick - written by Vittorio Rambaldi (with some rushed rewrites by Umberto Lenzi) - proves to be a rather mixed bag. Indeed, just in terms of acting, the movie comes across rather schizophrenic. The ever-reliable John Saxon (A Nightmare On Elm Street) plays a sheriff doing the dirty bidding of a mayor who's only worry is not scaring off tourists (*ahem* Jaws *ahem*), while Michael Parks (Red State) plays an alcoholic doctor/pathologist/pervert, and Lance LeGault (The A-Team) gleefully hams it up as a Bible-clutching priest - all good stuff, but the rest of the acting on-show ranges wildly from under-sold to reprehensible. Mind you, in a movie like this (ideal VHS rental fodder), that's part of the fun...

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The Best of 80s Scream Queens (David DeCoteau, 1987-1989) Blu-Ray Review

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“Hell Just Got a Lot Hotter!” Three low budget genre movies on two discs: Nightmare Sisters, Murder Weapon, and Deadly Embrace; with three legendary scream queens popping up (and popping out) across them all: Brinke Stevens, Linnea Quigley, and Michelle Bauer. Fans of 1980s VHS flicks, roll on up for 247 minutes worth of low budget run-and-gun exploitation as sorority nerds are possessed by a succubus, two psychotic mob daughters throw a house party, and a desperate housewife entertains the pool boy...

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Flavours of the Month: November 2018...

Carpenter classics, ascending zombies, and the biggest videogame release of the year are just some of what's been setting the tone of my November 2018...

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Nail Gun Massacre (Terry Lofton & Bill Leslie, 1985) Blu-Ray Review

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“Now, now. You shouldn't really fall to pieces over me.” Cheaper than a chainsaw, pointier than a pointy thing, this low budget revenge-fuelled slasher brings bargain basement gore to the woods of rural Texas where a maniac with an aversion to amorous couples and construction workers is on the rampage. Cobbled together by determined first-time film makers and exploited by unscrupulous distributors for decades, the journey towards wider recognition has been an arduous one for Nail Gun Massacre, a gritty DIY horror from the heyday of the video cassette that is adored just as much for its unintentional goofs as it is for its scripted sarcasm...

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Flavours of the Month: October 2018...

Bold-faced comedy, a return to the grind, and intellectual horrors are just some of what's been setting the tone of my October 2018...

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Flavours of the Month: May 2018...

Bundles of Blu-Rays, aerial dog fights from a century ago, and FWOAN's first big screening have been setting the tone of my May 2018...

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Flavours of the Month: March 2018...

Bleak Russian sci-fi, hilarious cartoon sci-fi, and flesh-chompers of different hues are some of what's been setting the tone of my March 2018...

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Milano Calibro 9 (Fernando Di Leo, 1972) Blu-Ray Review

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“Society makes its criminals suffer and after that it ignores them.” Fernando Di Leo's crime flick gets off to an explosive start as, to the energetic sounds of prog rock, a package containing a large quantity of cash is transferred from one person to another amidst the autumnal streets and neon-lit subways of Milan, only for the real package to get switched with a fake somewhere along the line. The carriers are braced one-by-one in increasingly violent fashion – heads smashed into vases, faces slashed with straight razors – but to no avail; the money has vanished. So now, according to the rules of this vicious gang, they must be taken care of – by blowing them all up with dynamite! Now that's how you start a movie...

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Cold Blooded Beast (Fernando Di Leo, 1971) Blu-Ray Review

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“How nice to be sent to a famous loony bin!” Straddling the lines between the gialli thrillers and softcore romps that were so popular with mainstream audiences in Italy during the 1970s, Fernando (Milano Calibro 9) Di Leo's skin 'n' kills movie Cold Blooded Beast (otherwise known as Slaughter Hotel) features a bevy of beautiful women inflagranti and in peril, as well as Werner Herzog's notorious performer Klaus Kinski…

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Wonder Woman - in review...

What's it about?
The original superheroine finally gets her day in the realm of big budget blockbusters. This is the origin story of Diana, Princess of the Amazons, the warrior birthed of the Gods, who encounters mankind for the first time against the horrifying backdrop of World War I as she seeks to put an end to Ares, the God of War.
Who would I recognise in it?
Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Connie Nielson, Lucy Davis, Ewen Bremner, and others.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
It triumphed at the box office and was a critical success story (almost predictably so after the orchestrated clickbait bullying that Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad both received, pitched like some kind of Damascene conversion for DC) - but how does Wonder Woman sit outside all of the initial media interest and flash-in-the-pan obsession with box office numbers? The answer to gaining more female superheros in the genre is to create new, female superheros, not to lazily do an arbitrary bit of stunt writing to ask "what if this guy was a gal?" - because, if you really think about it, how insulting is that to everyone?

Newcomers to comics are disappointed to find that new releases aren't reflective of the hugely popular Marvel movies, while swapping the sex of an established character is a slap in the face to everyone. Not only is it a lazy move on the part of the writers and head honchos of the franchises, it also makes the suggestion that women aren't worthy of having their own custom-made superheroes. Furthermore, the binary sex-swap makes the insulting suggestion that women are incapable of enjoying male superheroes and that men are incapable of enjoying female superheroes, and that both can't find role models in the opposite sex - quite simply, that is utter bullshit.

Wonder Woman's history is a long one that pre-dates a vast swathe of rival Marvel's line-up of household names. Gal Gadot wowed in Batman v Superman (with a spine-tingling soundtrack riff to accompany her), and with DC getting a handle on their 'Expanded Universe', it was likely that Diana Prince's solo flick would turn out to be a cracker - and it certainly is. The film finds the perfect balance between DC's ability to 'go dark' (the merciless slaughter of World War I) and a sense of humour, warmth, and compassion...

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The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave (Emilio P Miraglia, 1971) Blu-Ray Review

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“It's not uncommon for a man to do strange things to get his kicks.” The opening companion piece to Miraglia's 1972 gothic-tinged giallo The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave treads similar ground to its successor. Miraglia juxtaposes the old and new worlds whereby the cutting edge design of the 1970s sits amidst a crumbling ancestral home built from stone and sordid family secrets. Riddled with nihilism, this forever-twisting tale of a sadomasochistic fetishist and his not-quite-so-dead wife is soaked-through with moral decay...

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Evil Ed (Anders Jacobsson, 1995) Blu-Ray/DVD Review

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“I'm just another chunk of meat lost in brain land.” Striking out of Sweden as the blood-soaked antithesis of Ingmar Bergman, Anders Jacobsson's Evil Ed – reportedly made with a budget equivalent to a mere two-and-a-half seconds worth of Jurassic Park – is a frantic and gleefully over-the-top horror comedy crammed to the gills with references to American splatter epics. In some ways it is the ultimate fan film crafted by obsessives of blood 'n' guts cinema, and yet – first appearing in the UK in the dying years of James Ferman's censorious grip on the British Board of Film Classification – when horror was still tantamount to smut – Evil Ed comes as a rebel yell against the Mary Whitehouse types of the world. Hands off our gore, it screams, take your scissors and shove 'em where the sun doesn't shine!

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The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (Emilio P Miraglia, 1972) Blu-Ray Review

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“The Corpse That Didn't Want To Die!” Following on from The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave (1971), writer/director Emilio P. Miraglia once again dived into the glamorous pool of the lurid European murder mystery with The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (otherwise known as The Lady In Red Kills Seven Times), a violent clash of morals set against a fractured backdrop where two worlds collide: that of a Gothic castle and that of a modernist fashion house. This is a film consumed with ideas of wealth and the inevitability of hereditary sin...

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Bride of Re-Animator (Brian Yuzna, 1989) Blu-Ray Review

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“This is no longer about just re-animating the dead – we will create new life.” Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator (1985) has, quite rightly, gone down in the annals of cinema as a landmark in horror. Brian Yuzna's 1989 sequel, however, has somewhat lurked uncomfortably in the shadows of its progenitor – but it deserves a re-evaluation, and with this in mind, Bride of Re-Animator reveals itself to be consumed with the idea of unrequited love as it circles the boundaries of necrophilia through the complex entanglement of not merely a love triangle, but a love pentagon...

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Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (Fred Olen Ray, 1988) Blu-Ray Review

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“What's the matter, chainsaw got your tongue?” Shot in five-and-a-half days over two weekends using borrowed equipment, re-cycled sets, and left over 'short ends' of film stock, Fred Olen Ray's particularly silly comedy horror/film noir spoof Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers – featuring Gunnar 'Leatherface' Hansen as the leader of a buzzsaw-worshipping cult – pretty much does what it says on the tin. Do you want naked ladies of the night hacking up dopey Johns with chainsaws and getting covered in blood? Then step this way...

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