‘Beauties and Beasts Box Set’ (2003, Something Weird Video) 

This is a great collection of old exploitation movies at a great price.  I’ve seen this at some local stores for less than $35.  If you’re at all interested in old exploitation movies I don’t know how you could pass it up.  The ‘Extra Weird Sampler’ disc is practically worth the price on its own.  It collects trailers and on a few occasions short clips from about 100 horror, nudie, action, sci-fi, juvenile delinquent, drug scare, and other genre films on one disc.  For those of you who’ve never seen trailers for old exploitation movies, these aren’t the sort of sophisticated pitches one sees today.   These trailers scream at you, promising blood, sex, and action.  Hyperbole, exaggeration, and outright lies abound.   Lurid and tasteless yet somehow charming.  Some of these movies I’ve seen and hated, but watching the trailers almost makes me want to see them again.  Almost.  Anyway, the other three discs in this box are all entertaining in their own ways.  Despite the seemingly limited “beauties and beasts” theme, the set manages to encompass nudist camp flicks, graphic horror, seventies soft core, and cheesy giant monster rallies.  The rest of this page covers all the feature films included in the box set.  Aside from the 'Extra Weird Sampler', the discs included here are: 'The Beast that Kiled Women'/'The Monster of Camp Sunshine', 'The Mighty Gorga'/'One Million AC/DC', and 'Night of the Bloody Apes'/'Feast of Flesh'.  (Bob Ignizio)

‘The Beast that Killed Women’/’Monster of Camp Sunshine’ (1965/1964, Something Weird Video)

Directed by Barry Mahon/Ferenc Leroget 

You’ll thrill to the exciting car backing into and out of driveway scenes.  You’ll feel the sizzling eroticism of semi nude square dancing.   You’ll tremble in fear when a guy in a ratty gorilla suit shows up to abduct screaming sun worshippers.  Well, maybe not.  Way back in the dark ages when pornography was still officially verboten, lonely guys looking for a little visual stimulation were forced to make do with silliness like ‘The Beast Who Killed Women’.  Nudist camp films like this one were a cheap and legal way to show skin on the screen in the fifties and sixties, although technically this is more like a semi-nudist camp movie.  Depending on where the camera is characters often wear bottoms.  That’s because you couldn’t show genitalia on screen at the time.   When this came out, the nudist camp and “nudie cutie” pictures were already on their way out, being replaced by “roughies” like ‘Scum of the Earth’ and ‘The Defilers’.  I really can’t recommend this one for anything other than historical curiosity.  The 60 minute running time feels at least twice that long.  

Somewhat more interesting is ‘The Monster of Camp Sunshine’.  Whoever was responsible (hard to tell, since everyone uses obvious pseudonyms) they seem to have had some degree of filmmaking skill and a hipster’s sense of humor.  The credits feature animated cut outs ala Terry Gilliam and the whole thing plays like a parody of adult’s only films.  Although set on a nudist camp, the film is shot in the black and white in a style more similar to “roughies” than the sunny full color fantasies of nudist camp and “nudie cutie” movies.  There’s some funny silent movie style intertitles and a few other decent gags, and of course the "monster" of the title chasing the naked revelers around.  This is an interesting curiosity if you’re an exploitation film aficionado, and also not bad if you’ve never seen a nudist camp film since it’s more interesting than most.   There's several nudist camp film trailers and related shorts, but I after watching both features I pretty much had my fill of nude volleyball for a while.  (Bob Ignizio)

‘The Mighty Gorga'/'One Million AC/DC’ (1969/1969, Something Weird)

Directed by David L. Hewitt/Ed Depriest

‘The Mighty Gorga’ may just be the worst King Kong rip-off ever, which if you’re like me makes it a must see film.  The human story involves a circus owner who is having financial trouble.  As a last ditch effort to save his business, he decides to go to Africa.  Supposedly there’s a legendary beast there which a big game hunter claims he can acquire for the circus owner.  Unfortunately the big game hunter has vanished into the jungle, leaving his daughter to run the circus supply company on her own.  It’s not long before our intrepid circus owner and the hunter’s daughter are making goo goo eyes at each other, and they eventually decide to try and capture the mysterious monster themselves.  Unfortunately the monster turns out to be The Mighty Gorga, a guy in a really bad gorilla suit.  There’s also a super cheesy T-Rex running around and of course a tribe of natives who give the guy in the gorilla suit virgin sacrifices.  Pretty silly stuff, but fun if you’re into this sort of thing. 

‘One Million AC/DC’, the co-feature on this disc, is even worse.  What else would you expect from late period Ed Wood?  Wood doesn’t actually helm this epic of prehistoric porn, but he did write the screenplay.  Essentially this is just a bunch of simulated sex scenes featuring cavemen and women writhing and moaning.  The T-Rex from ‘The Mighty Gorga’ shows up to munch on some of the cast, and a guy in a gorilla suit kidnaps girls for unnatural purposes.  That’s about it.  Because so much of this feature’s running time is taken up by unerotic sex scenes, you don’t even get that much of the classic Woodian dialogue, but I’m sure that won’t stop most of Ed’s fans from wanting to check this out anyway.  It’s really not anything special, though.  The disc also contains several simian short subjects and giant monster related movie trailers.  (Bob Ignizio)

‘Night of the Bloody Apes’/’Feast of Flesh’ (1972/1967, Something Weird)

Directed by Rene Cardona/Emilio Vieyra 

Actually the title is a bit misleading.   There’s only one ape, but he does get bloody.  The basic plot is that a doctor transplants the heart of an ape into his dying son, which as everyone knows only causes the recipient to turn into a rampaging man-beast.  The bloody ape runs around abducting women and relieving them of their clothes before killing them.  He also puts the hurt on a few guys dumb enough to get in his way, resulting in some gloriously cheesy gore effects.  Heads get pulled off, eyes are gouged out, and in one inspired bit a bald guy’s toupe’ is pulled off but we’re supposed to believe he’s being scalped.  Genius.  There’s also a subplot involving a detective and his girlfriend, a lady wrestler in a fethisy red cat costume.  This gives us a couple scenes of grappling to help pad this turkey out to feature length.  Pretty much everything you’d want from a Mexican horror movie except maybe Santo his own bad self.   I should also mention that this movie has one of the greatest trailers I’ve ever seen.  It’s just the exploitation highlights from the movie while some guy shouts “Kill, Kill, Kill!”   

On the same DVD from Something Weird video is the equally fun and bizarre ‘Feast of Flesh’.  ‘Feast…’ is shot in black & white (surprisingly well I might add) and feels something like a cross between Jess Franco’s ‘Awful Dr. Orloff’ and an AIP ‘Beach Party’ movie.   In other words, a masked psycho organist plays what sounds like the theme to ‘Dark Shadows’ to lure buxom beach bunnies to his lair and then gives them a lethal overdose of heroin.  Meanwhile young swingers party on the beach (occasionally topless), and instead of running off to catch Dick Dale and the Del Tones the kids hang out at a jazz club.  A detective tries to solve the mysterious murders and disappearances, and winds up romantically involved with the Annette stand in.  The dubbed dialogue is pretty bad, and the plot is more of the same kind of ludicrous pulp fiction seen in this disc’s first feature.  Other than a few brief shots of nipples, this could play on TV without any cuts.   While ‘Feast of Flesh’ isn’t quite the over the top trash epic as it’s co-feature, it’s still fairly entertaining.  As is always the case with Something Weird DVDs, this one is loaded with trailers and shorts, and in this case a great gallery of lurid horror comic book covers. (Bob Ignizio)