BRANDED A COWARD (1935, Supreme); LAWLESS LAND (1936, Supreme); TRAIL OF VENGEANCE (1937, Republic); HELLTOWN (1937, Paramount)

THE DEMON RIDER (1925, Davis Prod.) HELL-FIRE AUSTIN (1932, Tiffany) SIX SHOOTIN’ SHERIFF (1938, Grand National.) FLAMING LEAD (1940)

MINOTAUR, WILD BEAST OF CRETE (1960, WIDESCREEN) Bob Mathias, Rosanna Schiaffino, Alberto Lupo.  King Minos sacrifices the “required” number of virgins to the monstrous Minotaur.  But as his wife is dying, she confesses that their daughter has a twin hidden away to avoid giving her to the Minotaur.  PLUS:  A LUST FOR DYING (1960, WIDESCREEN) Annette Stroyberg, Elsa Martinelli, Mel Ferrer. This retelling of Lefanu’s classic vampire tale, Carmilla, is a good one.  Carmilla’s obsession with her friend’s engagement leads her into the darkness of a female vampire’s tomb...

THE DEATHHEAD VIRGIN (1974) Jock Gaynor, Diane Mc Bain, Larry Ward, Vic Diaz.  Gaynor’s a treasure hunter who finds a big haul—a sunken ship in the Pacific.  However, the ship is guarded by the vengeful spirit of an ancient princess. PLUS: EERIE MIDNIGHT HORROR SHOW (1974) Stella Carnacina, Chris Avram, Lucretia Love.  A beautiful woman purchases an ancient statue.   In a shocking scene, it comes to life and rapes her.  She then becomes possessed and is taken to a convent where an exorcism priest is brought in to free her...

(1931) Lowell Sherman, Peggy Shannon, Lila Lee, Berton Churchill, David Landau, Joyce Compton.  Sherman gives a grand performance as a doctor who’s fired from his hospital job for being morally corrupt.  He then sets himself up as a plastic surgeon, although he is completely unqualified.   He seduces women, rips off his patients, and soon causes an operating room tragedy that lands him in criminal court...

(1956) Dinos Iliopoulos, Margarita Papageorgiou, Marika Lekaki, Giannis Argyris.  This is a brilliant piece of Greek filmmaking, filled with wonderful performances and perfectly written pieces of dialogue.  A peaceful, frightened little man is mistakenly identified as "the dragon", a notorious criminal at large and known womanizer. He somewhat reluctantly rules the local underworld until...

(1972) Stelio Candelli, Patrizia Viotti, Veronika Korosec, Rossella Bergamonti, Tom Felleghy.  A man finds his wife brutally murdered. He has no alibi so is instructed by his lawyer to go into hiding in an old, abandoned hotel. Strange occurrences start happening immediately, including the discovery of a woman with her throat cut! The hotel setting of this film is in some ways reminiscent of The Shining...

(1959) Horst Buckholz, Mario Adorf, Helmut Schmid, Alf Marholm.  Buckholz gives the performance of his life as a human castoff, in international limbo, because of the loss of his passport.  He is conned into taking a job on a tramp steamer filled with misfits, smugglers, and murderers.  Soon after realizing his plight, he and his pal discover the ship’s cargo isn’t exactly what it’s purported to be...  

CROSS-UP (1958) Larry Parks, Constance Smith, Lisa Daniely, Donald Stewart. On the first night of his London assignment, news agency reporter Parks becomes heavily involved with a mysterious woman (Daniely). The affair ends when she is shot as they grapple for a gun she has pulled.  But this is only the beginning of Parks’ troubles, especially considering the dead woman worked for a criminal organization...

DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS (1948) Maxwell Reed, Siobhan McKenna, Anne Crawford, Honor Blackman.  McKenna is brilliant as an insane killer.  Reed is a carnival boxer who falls under her spell and ends up hideously scarred from her jagged fingernails.  Soon, young men turn up slain.  PLUS:  THE MONKEY’S PAW (1948) Milton Rosmer, Megs Jenkins, Michael Harvey, Eric Micklewood.  A man obtains a dead monkey’s magical paw.  He is bestowed three wishes. His first wish is to be debt-free.  The wish is granted, but the price is his son’s life.  The next wish is for the son to be returned to life—but the price is truly horrible...

THE HEADLESS EYES (1971) Bo Brundin, Ramon Gordon, Kelly Swartz.  A down-on-his luck artist gets more than he bargained for in a failed robbery attempt—an eye gouged out with a spoon!  With his eye hanging out and dangling by the nerve, he screams into the night!  He then goes nuts and turns to killing women and cutting their eyes out.  PLUS:  THE GHASTLY ONES (1968) Veronica Radburn, Maggie Rogers, Hal Borske, directed by Andy Milligan.  Three couples spend the night in a creepy Victorian house in order to claim their inheritance.  Before long, they start dying horribly at the hand of a knife-and-pitchfork-wielding psycho who wants their inheritance...

HOT MONEY GIRL (1959) Eddie Constantine, Christopher Lee, Dawn Addams.  Constantine and Addams hatch a plot to recover a parcel of priceless jewels from behind the iron curtain.  Their quest takes them to an old convent that’s now a German police barracks. Lots of tense moments as they break through security lines. PLUS:  THE UNSTOPPABLE MAN (1960) Cameron Mitchell, Marious Goring, Harry Corbett.  Mitchell is a tycoon whose son is kidnapped.  There’s a huge ransom demand and the cops tell Mitchell to let them handle it.  Mitchell, though, takes matters into his own hands.  There’s a bit of sci-fi as Mitchell defends himself with a futuristic, hand-held flame projector...

(1964) Jim Davis, Don 'Red' Barry, Margo Woode, R. Wayland Williams, Tris Coffin.  An inexperienced army lieutenant grabs five volunteers for a dangerous mission from which they may not return.  Their task is simple:  take out the North Korean mortar position that's been pounding U.S. supply convoys and preventing them from reaching the troops at the front line...

THE MAGIC SERPENT (1966, WIDESCREEN) Hiroki Matsukata, Tomoko Ogawa, Ryutaro Otomo.  In ancient Japan, a good lord is killed and his throne is taken by a treacherous lord and his sorcerer.  Years later, an epic battle ensues between the prince and the sorcerer.  PLUS:  THE WITCH (1966) Richard Johnson, Rossanna Schiaffino, Sarah Ferrati.  A young historian is brought to a magnificent palatial estate to assemble the largely erotic memoirs of a deceased general.  There he falls in love with a beautiful witch... 

(1929) William Black, Viola Richard, directed by Charles L. Glett.  Don’t bother looking, you won’t find this incredibly rare American-made crime featurette in any of the major film research books or websites.  It’s a little creaky but interesting—especially from a film history perspective.  PLUS:  BOTHERED BY A BEARD (1945) Tod Slaughter, Jerry Verno, John Salew.  Todd does a short reprisal of his Sweeny Todd character...

THE MURDER CLINIC (1966, WIDESCREEN) Williams Berger, Barbara Wilson, Mary Young. Dr. Vance owns a clinic for the mentally ill located in a gloomy forest.  Unfortunately, there’s a hooded killer on the grounds, slashing people to death with a straight razor. PLUS:  THE DEVIL’S MISTRESS (1966) Joan Stapleton, Robert Gregory, Wes Morland.  An Old West horror film about a female vampire who has a passion for unsuspecting cowboys and soon takes revenge on the four thugs who murdered her husband in cold blood...

(1979) Toshiyuki Nishida, Isao Natsuyagi, Haruko Wanibuchi, Tomoko Saitô.  This is a really well-made Japanese “locked room” murder mystery set in the 1930s.  The famous Nipponese detective Kindaichi is called in to investigate a number of horrible slayings.  His investigations soon point the finger at members of a wealthy family—a family that, as it turns out, has many dark secrets to hide...

(1962) Liz Fraser, Kenneth Griffith, Peter Reynolds, Tony Wickert, David Hemmings. Two small-time blackmail artists (a man and woman) run afoul of a brutal gangster, who  stabs the man to death in his apartment as a warning for others to stay clear of his territory.  But when the woman shows up with an intended victim (a drunken student), the body is discovered and the student, in a drunken stupor, agrees to dispose of it...