The Magic Sword	1962 take on St George/Dragon. Good hag *
Werewolf	1995 straight to video. Gratuitous archaeology. *
Stitches	2012 straight to video. Tedious.
Maximum Revenge	With the great John La Zar. If this is maximum revenge we’d hate to see minimum. **
Battle for the Lost Planet	Steal a space shuttle, see what happens. *
Feeders	Greatest aliens ever. Also Extreme Method Acting. *
Feeders 2	The rare sequel that’s siller than the original **
Frozen Scream	The rare “frozen zombie” scenario *
Vengeance of the Dead	Small town weirdness. Inept and not charming about it.
Light Blast	With Erik Estrada (automatic one coil add) in a Speedo (automatic one coil subtract). *
Sunset Strip	With John Mayall, of all people. Pass.
I Eat Your Skin	An all-time CACA classic See https://coiledpleasures.com/2015/03/03/i-eat-your-skin-again-plus-the-dangers-of-teal-sport-coats/
Contamination	Excellent plague flick, with gooey green stuff and nekkidity.***
Jack-O	Weak Halloween horror, starring a framed photo of John Carradine.
Hijacked: Flight 285	In which two members of the Brat Pack mourn their career paths and James Brolin looks embarassed.
Suburban Sasquatch	Entertainingly inept **
Killers from Space	1954 “Watch the Skies”-type flick with a very young Peter Graves. *
Yesterday’s Target	Time Travel Tripe. LeVar Burton snags “Least Convincing Heavy” award*
Giant from the Unkown	Zombie alien conquistador. Bizarre. *
Phantom Creeps	Feature stitched together from a serial. WIth Bela Lugosi.**

Kill and Kill Again	Deranged sequel to “Kill or Be Killed. “Think “Circle of Iron” with a little “Mandingo” and “1984” for seasoning. ***
Plan 9 from Outer Space	Always mentioned, rarely matched for sheer absurdity. Gets boring though. **
Ghost House	Basic Italian fare but with ham radio*
Breaker Breaker	Chuck Norris minus facial hair. Very disorienting. **
Manos: Hands of Fate	An all-time classic of Bad Cinema. Impossible to disimprove on. ****
When a Stranger Calls Back	Tedious, and not in a good way.
The Most Dangerous Game	Now we know why Fay Wray was a big deal *
Omega Cop	Adam West as world mumbling champ *
Lycan Colony	Modern direct-to-video with no redeeming qualities
Time Chasers	A new take on the American Revolution. Also pleated Dockers.*
Terror in the Wax Museum	Thrill as washed-up actors struggle to get a paycheck! *
The Devil’s Hand	If Reefer Madness was a devil movie, it would look like this*
Ninja Warlord	Fighting for truth, justice, and against fish taxes**
Feeders	Outsider cinema or complete dreck? Leaning toward the latter. The childish FX are winsome, though.*
Missile to the Moon	Attack of the rock creatures*
Bronx Warriors	Moose knuckle, bad geography, post-apocalyptic field hockey gang **
Silent Rage	Chuck Norris vs. the Psycho Zombie ***
The Guy from Harlem	Academy Award nomination for Worst Lighting. ***
Velvet Smooth	Lost “Worst Lighting” award to The Guy from Harlem, but it was close. ***
Future Force	Starring Fat David Carradine **
Death Promise	Kung fu revenge flick, better than most **
Yor, Hunter of the Future	Outstanding sword and sorcery epic with minimal plot to get in the way of the story, and breasts. ****
Psychotronic Man	Rocky the barber discovers he can kill with his steely gaze. *

Since the start of the new year I have been on a horrible cinema roll. Here is the first batch.

I put it in a spreadsheet because it seemed like it would simplify things. It didn’t.

An asterix * equals one coil.

No asterix means there is no reason to watch the film. You can thank me later.

One asterix (or coil) means there is something entertaining about it. Might not be much.

Two coils (or asterixes) means there is something entertaining about the film, plus nekkidity or some other saving grace.

Three astercoils means the film is an oustanding piece of dreck, well worth your time.

A four-coiler (or asterixer) is a CACA Classic. Four coils comes with an automatic nomination for the Iron Coil for Lifetime Achievement.

Sons of Hercules	Adventures of Arrghules. Seriously. *
Treasure of the Amazon	They find it eventually.
Bounty Tracker	Bounty Tracker. NOT Bounty Hunter. *
ROTOR	Robocop on a very small budget.
Son of Sinbad	Vincent Price as Omar Khayym, pre-Ruby Yacht (for you Rocky and Bullwinkle fans) *
Supersonic Man	Action at the speed of sludge
Sharknado 2	I missed the original?!
Bloody Pit of Horror	Mickey Hargitay chews the scenery *
Kingdom of the Spiders	Big Bill Shatner as “Rack Hansen.” ***
Ice Cream Man	The flick that answers the question “Whatever happened to Clint Howard?”
Shape of Things to Come	Jack Palance in space togs
Karate Cop	“Mad Max” x kung fu
Wonder Women	Wonder Women, plural. Tremendous 70s processed cheese product. ***
BermudaTriangle	Scooby Doo diving and drunk guy who won’t shut up
Cool As Ice	Extended music video starring Vanilla Ice.
Stone Cold	Brian Bosworth saves Mississippi. Or is it Arkansas? Somewhat diverting. **
Birdemic	James Nguyen’s meditation on environmentalism and smooth traffic merging. With spinning exploding CGI birds. *
Astro Zombies	Incomprehensible but fun. *
Viva Knieval	Evel Knieval stars as himself and does cool things. **
Ator the Fighting Eagle	Sword and sorcery epic with incest undertones — but no eagle. **
Final Justice	AKA “The Maltese Fat Slob.” Joe Don Baker “stars” in this “action” “movie.” **
Star Raiders	Saber Raine rescues the princess. Suffers from modern tech. Would have been much better as a grainy 70s flick. *
The Visitor	“Carrie” meets the Book of Revelations during an Atlanta Hawks game. Oddly compelling. **
House On Haunted Hill	Vincent Price at his oily best. **
Mutant	Deliverance meets Erin Brockovich
Honor and Glory	Hot chix and kung fu, not necessarily in that order *
McBain	C. Walken and his Swept-Back Hair do battle with narcos and zzzzz
Last Slumber Party	Gets one coil for 80s cute girl nostalgia *
Firehead	Russian agent with the power to blow things up with his gaze defects. Hilarity tries valiantly to ensue.
Octaman	“Murderous humanoid octopus” **
Yambao	Love, laughter and witchcraft  in colonial Cuba, with a surprising amount of nudity for 1957 *
Miami Connection	Outstanding piece of outsider cinema that really wants to be inside. Tae Kwon Do, not kung fu. Also a musical. ***
Martial Law	Kung Fu Kop joins LAPD with hilarious results. Not really. With Chad McQueen, Steve’s son. *
Fangs of the Living Dead	Beautiful virgin arrives to take possession of medieval castle only to find the place infested with vampires, who are better looking than the alleged and somewhat elderly virgin.
Samurai Cop	Kung Fu Kop with Giant Jaw vs. the Drug Trade
Tourist Trap	Yokels run deadly spa. With snakes and Chuck Connors. *
Terror at Tenkiller	What “Ozark” could have been if it was made for $11.87 by someone with zero talent. *
Starship Invasion	Christopher Lee stars as a telepathic alien, which means he doesn’t actually say anything. You just hear it somehow. *
Subspecies IV	One of a series. I dare you to watch any more.
Carnival of Souls	A classic of sorts, and why marijuana is now legal. **
Warriors of the Wasteland	With Fred Williamson, for Green Bay Packers fans of a certain age. *
The Power	Demonic possession via Aztec doll.
Galaxy Invader	True outsider cinema from Maryland’s own Don Dohler. Spectacularly amateurish. ***
Kill or Be Killed	Nazi kung fu movie, with the World’s Emptiest Amphitheater **

Say “Mandy” to anyone born before, say, 1970 and they’re gonna think Barry Manilow’s hideous hit song of 1975 or thereabouts.

Who can forget these immortal lyrics?

Oh, Mandy
Well, you came
And you gave without taking
But I sent you away
Oh, Mandy
Well, you kissed me
And stopped me from shaking
And I need you today
Oh, Mandy

Actually I had forgotten them. Damn the internet anyway.

Anyhoo, I was looking for revenge flicks, and while it’s always a pleasure to watch Charles Bronson blow away scum in “Death Wish,” I was looking for something a little more contemporary.

And boy did I find it.

“Mandy” the movie (2018) is the brainchild of one Panos Cosmatos, which sounds like a place where you can buy $20 dinner rolls.

It stars Nicolas Cage because it’s a rule that anything involving lots of screaming has to have Big Nick in the mix.

See, Red is a logger and he’s stopped drinking and he lives way out in the boonies in a little house with Mandy, who works at the convenience store and creates the kind of art once confined to custom vans and the covers of Conan the Barbarian paperbacks.

But darn it all, there’s a cult of weirdos whose leader (Linus Roache) seems to think he’s a cross between Jesus and Charlie Manson, with a little Jon Anderson (of Yes) and Kris Kristofferson thrown in for leavening.

And they are in cahoots with some mutant bikers and everybody’s drinking down this sludgy LSD specially created for them by the Chemist because a) he doesn’t like them and b) he’s got a tiger.

I cant really say hilarity ensues, but a whole lot of stuff sure does, including but not limited to:

Kung fu with chainsaws, medieval weapons, and bare fists. Eyeball-popping. Barbed wire. Hallucinations galore. King Crimson music. Custom vans. About 40 gallons of blood. Dorm room theology. And Cage in his Jockeys, which makes this a horror movie.

And a solemn warning: Never laugh at the LSD-crazed dude in the goofy robe when he’s playing you his latest demo.

“Mandy” gets an unapologetic four coils and a nomination for the Freestanding Coil Award for Lifetime Achievement.

In “Street Law,” the immortal Franco Nero plays Carlo, a mild-mannered engineer with a cheesy mustache and a penchant for turtlenecks who gets in the middle of a bank hold-up, with grim results.

His girlfriend, Barbara, played by Lady Starkey (aka Mrs. Ringo Starr aka Barbara Bach) is no help, so he does the obvious thing, which is to blackmail another crook into getting guns and the identities of the bad guys.

After many missteps and a lot of bad driving, Carlo and his now-buddy Tommy track down the bad guys and everybody except Carlo dies.

Unlike Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey character in the “Death Wish” movies, Carlo weeps a lot. It is irritating.

This flick is mildly entertaining for all the wrong reasons, most of them concerning men’s clothing. You couldn’t throw a brick in Italy in the 1970s without clobbering some poor chump wearing some kind of double-breasted curtain sample and nut-cracker trousers.

Just the thing for a cold afternoon in the Catskills when it’s too windy to fish.

I can’t remember if there is any nudity. Probably some, but not memorable. It’s certainly no “Deathstalker II” in that regard.

Two coils.

The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984) is one of the sword ‘n’ sorcery (S&S) flicks made by Roger Corman in Argentina in the 1980s, and one of the more coherent ones.

“Coherent” is a malleable concept, so I will leave it to the always-reliable Wikipedia to summarize the plot, which does not get in the way of the story (thank you, Mr. Briggs).

“In a distant galaxy lies the desert planet of Ura, which has two suns. There, two rival warlords, Zeg and Bal Caz, constantly fight against each other in a battle over the only wellspring in the village of Yamatar. The mercenary warrior Kain emerges and announces that his skills are for hire to the highest bidder. Naja, a beautiful sorceress that has been taken captive by Zeg, changes Kain’s original purpose of taking the well for himself to saving Naja and the village people. Kain starts to tangle the situation, taking advantage of the ongoing feud while seeking to debilitate the rival warlords and defeat them.”

There are two main bad guys. Zeg is the Dictator-type, and Bal Caz is the fat one wearing a designer diaper.

Then there is the immortal Maria Socas, who also figures in Deathstalker II. In the latter, she wears a flimsy nightie and an Official Amazon Warrior Fighting Bikini, but in the co-starring role here, she is topless almost the entire way through.

For some reason the internet is only coughing up this still, which is not very clear. Still, you get the idea.

Summary: The total breast count is somewhere between 10 and 16, if you count the fat guy. One Assault Iguana. Two gibbering sycophants. One gang of slave traders with burned, squashed faces. One 1980s mullet-headed bad guy. Two quarts of blood. One old guy who hides in a cave. Two dozen scurrying villagers. One well. Gnomic utterances from David Carradine, cunningly disguised as a kung fu master named Kain, as opposed to his famous TV role as a kung fu master named Kaine.

This flick is available in a four-movie DVD set with the first two Deathstalkers and The Barbarian Queen. If you absolutely must possess some S&S, this is the way to go.

This is everything Bad Cinema should be. Four coils.

It would be nice to report on all the wonderful movies and television shows I discovered during the pandemic.

Alas.

A short grab bag of recent suckiness:

“The American Side” — Neo-noir starring Buffalo and a bunch of people I never heard of. Involves some kind of conspiracy involving Nikola Tesla. I gave it a solid 20 minutes and it failed to grip.

“Dahmer” (Netflix series) — Episode one covers when Jeffrey Dahmer gets arrested. Excellently creepy scene leading up to arrest. But what are they going to do for the rest of it? Answer: Lotsa flashbacks about how it’s someone else’s fault JD turned into a cannibal. Pass.

“Darby and Joan” (UK TV) — Highly irritating load of shite about some dopey woman who goes to Australia to try and figure what happened to someone. Features the worst fly-casting ever shown on screen. One episode and out.

Amazon’s “Some Kind of Hobbit Shit” — OK, they are promoting the hell out of it, let’s have a look. Oh it’s a Diversity ad. Maybe they’ll get super transgressive and lob a black Viking in the mix. Oh wait…

I can’t find the coil photos so taken together these add up to one full coil.

Noburo Iguchi’s Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead is not, strictly speaking, about toilets. There is an outhouse in the film, and it has dead people in it, but it’s really incidental to the plot, which almost never gets in the way of the story.

Arisa Nakamura plays Megumi, a nice Japanese schoolgirl who knows some kung fu and is heartbroken over the suicide of her sister. She’s with two girls and a dorky guy, plus a skeezy weirdo, and they are going camping, in the best, time-honored, “Stupid People in the Woods” manner.

One of the gals wants to eat a parasitic worm so she can be skinny and become a model. They find a worm in a trout which Megumi catches with a net.

Now here’s where we have some problems. First of all, are there trout in Japan? Second — do they have big worms in them? Third, is it bcause they are wormy that they hang in space, waiting for a kung fu net-twirling Japanese kid to show up and catch them? Fourth — ever hear of cat and release?

I realized at this point in the film that the ol’ suspension of disbelief was going to come in handy.

Anyhoo, as you might guess, there are zombies around, and in trying to get away from them the gang find a little village.

Ko (played by Yuki, or maybe it’s the other way around), is feeling a little under the weather on account of the worm she ate, and she starts farting.

 She poots her way to the outhouse, where, as is often the case in these isolated locations with a mad scientist in  the barn and tapeworms in the trout, there are also zombies in — or under — the outhouse.  

Iguchi keeps upping the ante, to the point where the film is utterly disgusting in every possible way.

But never tasteless.

We’re talking the usual exploding heads and popping eyes. Visible farts. Visible farts with demons in them. Zombies walking on all fours, backwards, with demon parasites sticking out of their butts. White panties. Flying parasite queen, in blue sun dress and flowered panties. Two breasts. Eight gallons blood; four gallons assorted glop. One mad scientist, one toothless goober, one skeezy drug addict, one flying trout.

An outstanding piece of work, and short, too.  Iguchi is an instant Immortal. Four coils, no doubt about it.

In case the legions of fans were wondering, the Coiled Pleasures staff is healthy, if somewhat depressed after 10 months of sitting around the house, with only the occasional fishing trip to alleviate the boredom.

And there have been some changes. Ralphus, our favorite malignant dwarf, died in July at age 62. He died, not of COVID-19, but from sheer meanness.

Nobody was sorry.

We didn’t try to replace Ralphus. Instead we spent the money we would have paid him on stupid shit, like the Hitachi vibrator and 24-foot carp rods.

We also bought some new socks.

What better time than now to develop a taste for bad cinema? Liven up those long stretches of coronavirus-induced boredom with the worst films ever made!

 

Here is a carefully selected group of truly bad films to get you started:

 

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies: Not only does this intensely weird film have no discernible plot, it’s also a musical. The Mystery Science Theater version is worth the extra three bucks or whatever it is.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Science-Theater-3000-Incredibly/dp/B008C8A6E2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=39HXJKLZNMBNL&dchild=1&keywords=incredibly+strange+creatures&qid=1584371305&s=instant-video&sprefix=incredibly+%2Cinstant-video%2C205&sr=1-2

 

Deathstalker 2: Gets the nod over Deathstalker 3 because it stars Denison University’s own John Terlesky, and because it features the immortal John La Zar, who is the star of…

 

https://www.amazon.com/Deathstalker-II-John-Terlesky/dp/B07DVMQXS3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BXY373O1N1RY&dchild=1&keywords=deathstalker+2&qid=1584371027&s=instant-video&sprefix=deathst%2Cinstant-video%2C422&sr=1-1

 

…Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Also featuring the Strawberry Alarm Clock, which makes it a horror flick. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Valley-Dolls-Dolly-Read/dp/B00FEC4RD0/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VV9V98MK19D1&dchild=1&keywords=beyond+the+valley+of+the+dolls+prime&qid=1584371146&s=instant-video&sprefix=beyond+the+%2Cinstant-video%2C225&sr=1-1

 

Circle of Iron: Kung Fu, ersatz mysticism, loincloths and Eli Wallach in a barrel of oil. A classic of the extended non-sequitur.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Circle-Iron-David-Carradine/dp/B017PSRM3W/ref=sr_1_1?crid=4XVZA180KKNZ&dchild=1&keywords=circle+of+iron&qid=1584371624&s=instant-video&sprefix=circle+of+iron%2Caps%2C192&sr=1-1

 

FDR — American Badass: Relive the glory days of World War II with this unique take on the defeat of the Axis powers. With Werewolf Hitler. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/FDR-American-Badass-Barry-Bostwick/dp/B00EPQRNVY/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2HXDJG46IZ8VT&dchild=1&keywords=fdr+american+badass&qid=1584371796&s=instant-video&sprefix=fdr+%2Cinstant-video%2C200&sr=1-2

The Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy: This might take some finding, but it’s well worth it, especially for the spectacle of the bad guys in pointy shoes trying to scramble around on the pyramid.

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058304/

 

The Acid Eaters: Another one that will require some effort to locate. Worth it for the ziggurat scene alone. 

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061329/

 

Manos — Hands of Fate: This was made on a bet in 1966 by some guy in Texas. Net production cost — $11.37 ($90.78 in 2020 dollars). Also exciting scenes involving the inability of the lead bad guy’s belt to hold his pants up. (The MST version is the only one I know of.)

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060666/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

 

Zero Woman — Red Handcuffs: This exciting Japanese “pinky violence” flick features, among other things, the regrettable state of Japanese male underpants in the mid-1970s.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Woman:_Red_Handcuffs

 

And finally, Iron Sky: Return to the heady days of the Obama presidency, when men were (sort of) men and space Nazis led by Sarah Palin established a base on the dark side of the moon!

 

https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Sky-Julia-Dietze/dp/B073WDVJFS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=iron+sky&qid=1584372910&sr=8-1