BLOOD AND BLACK LACE!!
SEI DONNE PER L'ASSASSINO!!

AL-QATILAH
(THE MURDERESS)
aka THIRSTY FOR RED BLOOD
Directed by Inas Al Degheidy
Cast: Fifi Abdu, Hassan Hosny
Egypt; 1992

How many Egyptian giallo/rape-revenge/social dramas do you know of? Well, now you now of at least one. One might hope for something really, really weird and alien from such a concoction but you'd only be partially correct. While it does have some (very) surprising sleaze as well as some odd hypnotic passages for the most part RED BLOOD kind of just plods along, dealing with it's own conservative Arab society concerns, uniterested in whatever the outside world might think.
The movie begins promisingly and disturbingly enough, with one of the most sickening child rape scenes ever committed to celluloid. In fact it may be one of the only child rape scenes. While it's not exactly explicit there is a very palpable sense of violation here as a dirty old man takes a young girl who wanders away from a picnic to his filthy shed and has his filthy way with her. The girl is understandbly upset as the solemn opening credits begin to roll. Whoa. Heavy. That "I'm gonna need to take a shower after this one" feeling starts to take over just as the credits break for a glitzy, garish Arabic language commercial for kitchen products! What the ... ? The credits return. Somber chamber music intones gravely. Then it breaks again as another commercial with 80s fashion casualties singing horrible Mediterranean pop rips its way across my unbelieving screen. This continues for a good ten minutes until the film starts proper. I don't know if my copy was taken from Egyptian TV or if they're video release have commercials too, but it has a totally disconcerting and unitentionally hilarious effect, totally negating whatever serious tone was achieved in the opening moments of the film. It never really recovers, but adds to the mysterious foreign aura of this unique viewing experience.
The movie then veers into quasi-giallo territory as the police investigate a series of murders involving wealthy older men. The culprit is of course, the girl from the start of the movie grown up now and alternating from mousy flower shop girl by day to vengeful harlot by night, seducing and destroying all she comes across. The highlight of this part of the film involves a sexy (non-explicit of course) striptease to wretched and hilarious 80s cock-rock culimnating in the film's most gory murder scene. Certain scenes do have a sort of wobbly poetry to them, perhaps accidentally, as well as a few hints of true cinematic talent. However after the cunning detective in charge of the investigation captures our avenging angel the film becomes a sort of socially conscious court-room drama as the detective tries to convince the courts and the public to be merciful on this obviously mentally disturbed girl. But it's all too late, as she faces down a firing squad in the film's final weepy moments. What a waste. But we do get one more astonishingly sadistic scene towards the end as a flashback reveals a severe whipping session our poor heroine was forced to suffer through at the hands of her father (?). It's pretty sleazy and weird in the context of everything else going on. But ultimately this is no sleaze classick, but only a somewhat interesting and intimate cinematic look at a culture we don't really have much of a grasp on here in the west, and for that reason is worth seeking out. That, and the crazy commercials that interrupt murder and rape scenes. Wacky!

Print provided by Electric Larvae.

Probably not. But at least there are a few promising things. As reported here last week, fab DVD label Mondo Macabro are co-producing a new horror film in Pakistan called ZIBAHKHANA directed by noted Pakistani film critic and historian Omar Khan. News broke this week that shooting has in fact wrapped and the website has been updated with some stills from the production. Looks pretty wild. Khan told the fellows at Twitch that "Never in the history of South Asian cinema has anything quite so splattery ever been attempted." Sounds totally boss. Click the rather, well, splattery image below for further such info.



Something else being reported at Twitch is the filmic return of the mighty Coffin Joe himself, Jose Mojica Marins! According to them as well as Dread Central, Marins is set to FINALLY film the looooooonnnnngggg intended sequel to the all-time classick THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE (one of our favorite films here at Worldweird) which is set to be called THE EMBODIMENT OF EVIL and goes a little something like this:

After 38 years of imprisonment, Coffin Joe is haunting the streets of Sao Paulo, still obsessed with the concept of rearing the perfect son by mating with a superior woman. Blocking his path to procreation will be a police colonel, the entire population of a local Favela (Brazilian slum), and a vengeful priest whose father was killed by Joe many years ago. Oh, and all of Joe'’s past victims are returning from Hell to get their revenge on the man as well!

That's according to Johnny Butane at Dread Central. Apparently the film will boast the biggest budget of Marins career and be his goriest as well. Very, very interesting.
We'll keep you updated with info as it becomes available.

According to DVD Maniacs' Ian Jane, sexy DVD boutique Severin will unveil the first two in a promised series of special edition discs focusing on the 80s output of the much maligned Euro-cult autuer on October 31.
Here are the far-out covers!





Pretty f*ckin' rad. I always prefer when original ad art is used, but in this case I think Severin has done a commendable job. Let's hope it bodes well for the quality of the discs themselves.
According to Mr. Jane, the movies will be new 2.35:1 transfers from original negatives and feature brand spankin' new interviews with Franco as well as Mrs. Franco, the one and only Lina Romay!
Sexy!!

SUPER INFRAMAN!!
JUNG-GWOK CHIU-YAN!!



Coming soon to DVD from Image Entertainment!

Pete Tombs mentioned in an interview last year that MM were going to be co-producing a horror movie in Pakistan, and here is the early evidence that just such an endeavor is in fact underway.
Check out the awesome teaser poster! (click it for further info):



The film is being directed by Omar Khan, who may remember as the articulate critic on the MM doc. about South Asian Cinema and as one half of the commentary team on the terrific DVD of the classic ZINDA LASH (THE LIVING CORPSE). He writes reviews of Bollywood films and of fantastic Western cinema for the website The Hot Spot, which you can visit right here! Be sure to seek out and read his utterly fascinating History of Lollywood Loose Cannons, Dangerous Curves and Levitating Holy Scriptures, it's highly informative and fun to boot. Scroll down under "Flash News" to find it.

As for the new movie, no listing for it at IMDB, and basically all the info I can find is that is being made pretty much right now, which might account for why Mondo Macabro's been so quiet the last couple of months. But from the poster and the folk involved this promises at least to be fairly interesting.

We will keep you updated with any info we dig up!

MM has just laid out the details for one of our most anticipated DVDs of the year!
The Skinny:

From MOULIN ROUGE to BRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Bollywood movies are starting to make their way into the hearts of mainstream moviegoers. One of the world's most beloved and successful film industries, Bollywood cinema is often defined by their glamorous locations, unique style and, of course, extravagant musical numbers that make these films so popular all over the world. But did you know that they also made horror films in India? Well Mondo Macabro does, and now they are finally able to bring THE BOLLYWOOD HORROR COLLECTION VOLUME 1 to the U.S. to showcase these truly one-of-a-kind films on DVD for the very first time in America or anyplace else for that matter!

THE BOLLYWOOD HORROR COLLECTION VOLUME 1 is a two-disc package containing the films BANDH DARWAZA (1990) and PURANA MANDIR (1984). Both are directed by Tulsi and Shyam Ramsay, members of Bollywood's famed Ramsay family, India's most famous makers of horror movies, which also consists of five other brothers and their father, producer F.U. Ramsay. In Bollywood they are seen as rivals to Hammer Films in both the quantity and quality of their productions.

BANDH DARWAZA is the Indian version of Dracula. A childless woman visits the lair of an evil magician in order that she may conceive. When she gives birth to a baby girl, the magician demands that she hand her over. She refuses and has the magician killed. But years later he is revived as a fully-fledged member of the undead and comes looking for the now teenage girl, intending to make her his slave!

PURANA MANDIR tells of the ancient curse visited on an Indian king 200 years ago causing all female members of his family turn into hideous monsters and die in childbirth. The daughter of one of his descendents decides to put an end to this curse and travels to the ancient temple where it all began 200 years before. What awaits her and her friends there is terror beyond their wildest nightmares. A classic of Indian horror that shocked a nation!

Mondo Macabro's BOLLYWOOD HORROR COLLECTION VOLUME 1 is six hours of scary fun on two DVD. Hot, hot, hot Indian horror from the land of gods and monsters. And yes, there are musical numbers in each film. See it for yourself!

THE BOLLYWOOD HORROR COLLECTION VOL. 1 Contains the Following Special Features:

A Mondo Macabro original documentary on south Asian action, horror and mythological films, covering India and Pakistan with lots of clips, interviews and background info on this hugely important but little known (at least in the west) area of cinema.

Freddie, Jason and Saamri. A more detailed look at the two main features in this double disc set. Shows how, with Purana Mandir, Bollywood horror movies created their first series character to rival Freddie Kruger, Jason Vorhees etc etc. Another Mondo Macabro original documentary seen only on this DVD!

Extensive background text on the rise and fall of the Bollywood horror movie and the history of the Ramsay Brothers horror factory.

The much loved and now extended Mondo Macabro preview reel.

Both BANDH DARWAZA and PURANA MANDIR are presented in their original full frame aspect ratios (1.33:1), in Hindi with optional English subtitles.

Look for Mondo Macabro's BOLLYWOOD HORROR COLLECTION VOLUME 1 DVD in stores on September 26, 2006 at a retail price of $24.95.

Bill from Onar has just given us the OK to post up a whole slew of trailers for upcoming Turkish pop films he's got in the works. We literally cannot wait for these DVDs! We need them now!

Viddy well, my brothers:

CASUS KIRAN!


MASKELI SEYTAN!


DEMIR PENCE KORSAN ADAM!


ORUMCEK THE SPIDER!


TARZAN ISTANBUL'DA!


TARZAN KORKUSUZ ADAM!


ASKA SUSAYANLAR SEKS VE CINAYET(THIRSTY FOR LOVE SEX AND MURDER)!

OLULER KONUSMAZ KI(THE DEAD DON'T TALK)!


DEMIR YUMRUK DEVLER GELIYOR(DEMIR YUMRUK THE GIANTS ARE COMING)!


And also you get the trailers for the already released (and totally freaking awesome) KILINK collection!

KILINK ISTANBUL'DA!


KILINK VS SUPERMAN(KILINK UCAN ADAMA KARSI)!


KILINK STRIP AND KILL(KILINK SOY VE OLDUR)!



We love it!! And want more, more, more!