IT SUCKS!
Part 1
by Tom M., a video junkie




Sword 'n' sorcery flicks, cannibal movies, slasher films, kung fu crud, sci-fi cheapies and zombie epics. In other words: exploitation of the worst possible kind. It Sucks!! is the chronicle of a search for the weirdest, vilest, trashiest tripe a VHS tape ever had the dubious honour of carrying. 

the ratings:

***** - Trashcan Award! A total bad taste classic
**** - Crap and proud of it!
*** - Get your kicks here
** - No violence, no sex, and to make matters worse: decent acting
* - What's this? A studio picture?!




Warrior Queen
USA/Italy 1986
director: Chuck Vincent
cast: Sybil Danning, Richard Hill, Stasia Micula
token has-been: Donald Pleasence



Austrian softcore queen Sybil Danning delivers another one of her amazingly bad performances in a very belated sword 'n' sandal cheapie. Set in Pompeii mere days before the lava, Warrior Queen deals with a bunch of slave girls and a pair of rival boneheaded gladiators. But do you care about plot (especially when there isn't one)? Of course not. You want to know about the juicy bits, like the climactic (ahem) eruption of Vesuvius, which consist mostly of stock footage and clips 'borrowed' from Mario Bonnard's The Last Days Of Pompeii (1960 - and it shows) or the laughably inept sex scenes, which only serve to pad out the non-existent storyline. Even then this movie only runs a scant 80 minutes.
Still, it's executive produced by Joe D'Amato and there are some good shots of a guy covered in acid and of someone's intestines squirting out of their body.


Exploitation rating: ***


The Zero Boys
USA 1985
director: Nico Mastorakis
cast: Daniel Hirsch, Kelli Maroney, Joe Phelan




Having been driven out of his native Greece by angry villagers, Nico Mastorakis lands in the US to make a rather enjoyable twist on the old slasher formula.
Three friends who spend most of their time playing war games, decide to spend some time in the woods with their girlfriends. Pretty soon they stumble upon a rather luxurious cottage, that turns out to be the property of a bunch of backwoods rednecks who engage in a bit (but only a bit, which is a bit of a shame) of snuff movie making.
As soon as the crossbows and machetes start appearing, this turns into a pretty brutal horror/action movie, packed with boobytraps, dead bodies falling from the ceiling and cars that won't start. Packs quite a punch, despite the piss-poor acting.

Exploitation rating: ****


After The Fall Of New York
(original title: 2019 Dopo la Caduta di New York)
Italy 1983
director: Sergio Martino (as Martin Dolman)
cast: Michael Sopkiw, Valentine Monnier, George Eastman




Hurrah! It's another one of those Italian Mad Max cum Escape From New York rip-offs. You have to hand it to them, it was a smart move to combine those two films, seeing how similar they were in theme and tone.
Again we get a stoic hero (Sopkiw, whose method of acting is to keep his face in neutral no matter what happens) and his pals on a quest to New York City, this time to find the world's last fertile woman. What sets this film apart form its colleagues... Wait a minute. Nothing sets it apart from its colleagues. That's why I'm reviewing it here. Well, okay, it's got some pretty decent model work and set design (the main baddie has Picasso's Guernica on his office wall) and George Eastman plays an apeman in a circus outfit.

Something for the trivia freaks: the Japanese guy also appears in Joe D'Amato's Endgame. I can't be bothered to look up his name.

Exploitation rating: ***


Bruce Lee - True Story
(a.k.a. Bruce Lee - The Man, The Myth)
Hong Kong 1976
director: Ng See Yuen
cast: Ho Chung Tao (as Bruce Li), Unicorn Chan, Linda Herst, Donnie William, David Chow




'So much like him you'll swear BRUCE LEE LIVES!', screams the tag line. The infamous Bruce Li plays the legend in this pretty shoddy biopic by future Seasonal boss Ng See Yuen. Actually, Li does a fairly decent job mimicking Bruce's facial expressions and mannerisms. Sadly, his kung fu moves aren't quite so spot on.
And neither is the time frame. In scenes set in the fifties and sixties we see nothing but afros and bellbottoms while funky wah-wah guitars play on the soundtrack.
Clearly overall accuracy isn't one of Ng's major concerns. According to him Bruce's entire life was spent fighting cocky challengers or sticking his fingers into wall sockets.

Exploitation rating: ****