The Ferpect Crime (4 Stars)

Sometimes I don't understand myself. Alex de la Iglesia is one of my three favourite directors, alongside Sion Sono and Zhang Yimou. In the case of the last two directors it's difficult for me to buy all their films, because some have never been released with English subtitles. But at the moment my collection of Alex de la Iglesia's films is almost complete. "Dying of Laughter" (1999) has recently been released for the first time with English subtitles. I thought it was impossible to buy "The Baby's Room" (2006), but this week I discovered that it's available dubbed into German. That's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. I've ordered it, and when it arrives I'll have all 18 of his films.

Some time in the near future I'll do a marathon of his films, watching them all in chronological order, but I'll watch a few now, especially the ones I'm currently buying. While looking through my collection I saw "Crimen Ferpecto" ("The Ferpect Crime") and realised I couldn't remember what it's about. So I checked my alphabetical list of posts to see when I last watched it. Huh? It's not listed. So when did I buy it? According to Amazon, I bought it in 2008, two years before I started writing my blog. So I haven't watched it for almost 18 years? That's crazy!

"The Ferpect Crime" looks like a black comedy about murder and ambition, but beneath the farce it's really a vicious attack on the cult of appearance. Rafael believes that women only have value if they fit the glamorous image sold by department stores, fashion adverts and television. He's obsessed with beauty, charm and social status; so obsessed that he completely overlooks the humanity of the women around him.

The film's masterstroke is the character of Lourdes. Rafael dismisses her because she doesn't match the conventional standards of attractiveness pushed by consumer culture, yet she's the only person in the story who genuinely sees through him. De la Iglesia exposes the shallowness of judging women purely by appearance; the supposedly "perfect" world Rafael chases is hollow, artificial and morally rotten. Beauty in the film becomes another product on display, no different from the expensive goods in the department store.

What makes the satire work so well is that the film never turns into a lecture. It's fast, cruel and very funny, but underneath the dark humour there's a real sadness about how easily people absorb these superficial standards. By the end, Rafael's obsession with appearances has trapped him in a life that's far uglier than the woman he mocked.

Dying of Laughter (4 Stars)

"Muertos de Risa" (engl. "Dying of laughter") is one of Alex de la Iglesia's sharpest and most uncomfortable black comedies; it takes the format of a Spanish TV comedy double act and slowly poisons it from the inside.

The film follows Nino and Bruno, two comedians whose career is built on mutual humiliation, timing and a very public sense of cruelty that the audience keeps rewarding. What starts as satire about celebrity culture and the mechanics of laughter gradually turns into something darker and more claustrophobic, as success hardens into obsession and dependency.

What makes it work is the tonal control. "Muertos de Risa" never fully lets you relax into either comedy or tragedy; it keeps slipping between the two, often in the same scene. The humour is real but it always feels a bit contaminated, like you’re laughing at something that’s already turning sour.

The film is also about Spain's own transformation. The older entertainment culture, shaped in the late Franco and immediate post-Franco years of the 1970's, relied on shared references, collective humour and a sense of social constraint. By the 1990's, that world has been replaced by aggressive media visibility, celebrity obsession and a television landscape that rewards extremity over subtlety. Nino and Bruno feel like products of that shift; they start in a world where performance is communal and end in one where it’s entirely predatory.

Alex de la Iglesia captures that transition with typical excess and discomfort. The film suggests that Spain’s move from a more contained, post-dictatorship culture into a modern media society didn't just change what people watched; it changed what they were willing to do to each other in public for attention.

Meet Joe Black (5 Stars)

"Meet Joe Black" is a Hollywood film that seemed faintly ridiculous to many critics when it first appeared, then slowly gathered a devoted audience who responded to its sincerity. At more than three hours long, with Brad Pitt playing Death in human form, it could easily have collapsed into self-parody. Instead, it became something strangely hypnotic; a melancholy romantic fantasy about mortality, wealth, loneliness and the terror of time running out.

The premise sounds absurd. A media tycoon named William Parrish is approached by Death, who arrives in the body of a young man and calls himself Joe Black. Death wants to experience human life before taking Parrish away. What follows isn't really a fantasy story in the conventional sense; it's a meditation on ageing, regret, romance and the awareness that time is limited.

The film works because director Martin Brest refuses to rush anything. Conversations unfold slowly. Characters pause before speaking. Entire scenes exist purely for atmosphere. The famous hospital and coffee-shop opening stretches time almost to breaking point, establishing the dreamlike rhythm that defines the entire film.

Anthony Hopkins gives the film its emotional gravity. His William Parrish isn't simply frightened of death; he's exhausted by power, responsibility and the compromises of success. Hopkins plays him as a man already halfway detached from the world before Joe even arrives.

Brad Pitt gives one of the oddest performances of his career. His flat vocal rhythms and awkward body language were mocked in 1998, but viewed now they make sense. Joe Black isn't human. He's observing people the way an outsider studies behaviour he doesn't entirely understand. Pitt plays him with a childlike curiosity mixed with something ancient and unknowable.

The emotional structure of the film depends heavily on the contrast between the two daughters.

Susan Parrish, played by Claire Forlani, is introspective, romantic and emotionally restless. Despite her privileged life, she seems disconnected from the corporate world surrounding her family. She wants intimacy and authenticity rather than social success. That's why she's drawn to Joe. Even before she understands what he is, she senses that he exists outside the artificial systems that dominate her world.

Allison, played by Marcia Gay Harden, represents stability and ordinary human attachment. She's practical, maternal and socially grounded. Unlike Susan, she isn't searching for transcendence or mystery. Allison accepts life as something to organise and preserve; Susan searches for something emotionally absolute. William loves both daughters deeply, but the contrast between them reflects two different responses to mortality itself. Allison embraces life as routine continuity; Susan searches for meaning beyond routine.

Over time the film has developed something close to cult status, although not in the traditional midnight-movie sense. It was always a large studio production with major stars, but its reputation has transformed. Younger audiences have rediscovered it through streaming and online clips, especially the coffee-shop sequence and the unexpectedly funny peanut butter scene. What audiences once considered unbearably earnest now feels refreshing. The film's refusal to be cynical has become part of its appeal.

The question of length has followed the film ever since its release. The original theatrical cut runs just over three hours. There was later a shortened release for use on television and for video rentals. On paper, the shorter version seems sensible. The corporate takeover subplot is reduced, several extended dinner conversations are tightened and some atmospheric transitional scenes disappear entirely.

Narratively, very little is lost. The shortened version still tells the same story clearly. In fact, viewers who found the original ponderous often prefer it because the romantic and supernatural elements become more prominent once the business material is compressed.

Yet something important vanishes with those cuts. The full-length version creates a sensation of suspended time. The slow pacing allows Death to drift through the Parrish household like a visitor studying humanity in microscopic detail. Even scenes that appear unnecessary contribute to the mood of lingering impermanence. The shortened version preserves the plot, but weakens the hypnotic atmosphere.

That's why the theatrical cut continues to attract devoted admirers despite its excesses. Many individual scenes could be removed without damaging the mechanics of the story, but the emotional experience depends on accumulation. The film gradually surrounds the viewer with the awareness of mortality. Its power comes less from narrative momentum than from emotional duration.

In the end, "Meet Joe Black" endures because it attempts something modern Hollywood rarely risks anymore; it treats romance, death and longing with complete seriousness. Sometimes it stumbles under the weight of its ambitions. Sometimes it's undeniably self-indulgent. But even its flaws feel connected to what makes it memorable. The film moves at the pace of someone reluctantly saying goodbye to life itself.

Success Rate:  - 0.4

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City of Angels (5 Stars)

"City of Angels" is a remake of a German film that's so well made that most people don't even realise it's a remake. It's a rare Hollywood remake that completely understands what it needs to change. Rather than trying to imitate "Wings of Desire" scene for scene, it transforms the original's philosophical melancholy into something more openly emotional and romantic. If Wim Wenders' film is about observation, loneliness and the burden of eternity, "City of Angels" is about feeling; immediate, painful, human feeling.

It can be summed up in one sentence: "Wings of Desire" is a film for the head, while "City of Angels" is a film for the heart.

Wenders fills Berlin with angels who listen silently to the thoughts of strangers. His film drifts through divided Germany like a poem about history, memory and alienation. The angels are fascinated by humanity but remain detached from it, and the black-and-white photography creates the sense that they're trapped outside life itself. It's a deeply intellectual film, one that asks what it means to exist rather than merely observe.

"City of Angels" strips away much of that philosophical weight and replaces it with romantic tragedy. Nicolas Cage plays Seth not as an abstract observer, but as someone already emotionally vulnerable before he falls in love. His relationship with Meg Ryan becomes the centre of the film in a way that the romance never entirely does in Wenders' version. The remake isn't concerned with the political or spiritual condition of a city; it's concerned with the intensity of human connection, and the pain that inevitably comes with it.

That's why Los Angeles matters so much as a replacement for Berlin. Wenders' Berlin is haunted by history and division. The Los Angeles of "City of Angels" feels weightless by comparison; full of sunlight, hospitals, beaches and empty freeways. The angels no longer wander through a wounded nation wrestling with memory. Instead, they float through a city obsessed with youth, beauty and mortality. The shift changes the entire emotional temperature of the story.

The remake also embraces sentimentality in a way Wenders carefully avoids. The soaring score, the soft golden light and the naked emotional sincerity all push the film towards melodrama. Yet that's exactly why it works for so many viewers. It isn't trying to provoke philosophical reflection as much as emotional catharsis. The famous tragedy near the end would feel manipulative in "Wings of Desire", but in "City of Angels" it feels completely consistent with the film's belief that love and loss are inseparable.

What makes the remake interesting is that it doesn't diminish the original by being simpler. It merely aims at something different. Wenders asks whether eternal beings would envy humanity. "City of Angels" answers immediately: of course they would. Human life hurts, but the pain is preferable to endless detachment.

Viewed that way, the two films complement each other surprisingly well. One contemplates existence; the other embraces it.

Success Rate:  + 1.6

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Sister Street Fighter: Fifth Level Fist (3 Stars)

Despite its name, "Sister Street Fighter: Fifth Level Fist" isn't a sequel to the previous three films. Once more, Etsuko Shihomi is the leading actress, but she plays a different character.

It isn't a terrible martial arts film, but it constantly suffers from comparison with the original Sister Street Fighter trilogy. The earlier films thrived on raw energy, outrageous violence and the magnetic presence of Etsuko Shihomi, who brought real charisma and physical intensity to every fight scene. This spin-off feels thinner and more mechanical, as if it's copying the formula without understanding what made it exciting in the first place.

The biggest problem is that the film lacks the wild, slightly dangerous atmosphere that defined the trilogy. The action is competent, but rarely feels brutal or unpredictable. Instead of escalating into delirious exploitation excess, the film settles into routine genre beats. Even the villains feel anonymous compared with the grotesque monsters that populated the earlier entries.

There's also a sense that the series had already exhausted itself creatively. The original trilogy balanced martial arts spectacle with a strange comic-book insanity that made each film memorable, while "Fifth Level Fist" feels assembled from leftover ideas. It's watchable, occasionally entertaining and certainly energetic enough, but it never achieves the manic charm that made the trilogy stand out from the countless other 1970's martial arts knock-offs inspired by "Enter the Dragon". In one scene we even see an "Enter the Dragon" film poster on the wall, as if the director's yelling at the viewer "This is my inspiration". I'm sorry, it's just a weak imitation.

Return of the Sister Street Fighter (4 Stars)

Directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, "Return of the Sister Street Fighter" is rougher, stranger and more entertaining than many of the better-known martial arts films of the 1970's. Etsuko Shihomi returns as Li Koryu with the same ferocious energy that made the earlier films memorable, but this sequel pushes the series further into comic-book absurdity. The villains are grotesque caricatures, the action scenes are gleefully excessive, and the film barely pauses to pretend that realism matters.

What makes the film work is Shihomi herself. Unlike many martial arts stars of the era, she projects both charm and genuine physical danger. She doesn't just pose between fight scenes; she moves with speed and conviction, making the chaotic choreography feel exciting rather than staged. The film also has a grimy exploitation atmosphere that separates it from the polished elegance of many "Enter the Dragon" imitators. It feels disreputable, loud and slightly unhinged, which is exactly its appeal.

The plot is nonsense, but that's beside the point. "Return of the Sister Street Fighter" succeeds because of its wild energy and Shihomi's magnetic screen presence. It's the kind of film that punches straight through good taste and becomes unforgettable because of it.

Off-Topic: Eurovision Song Contest 2026

Last night I watched the entire Eurovision Song Contest for the first time since... ever. I vaguely remember watching it when I lived with my parents, but I don't think I made it through the whole show. Since leaving home I've never watched it. Most years I've even boasted that I avoided listening to any of the songs, neither the English song, nor the German song, nor the winning song.

So why did I sit down to watch the show last night? I wanted to see if it's still as bad as everyone says. And yes, it really was bad. I picked a couple of songs that were my favourites, but all that meant was that they weren't quite as bad as the others. At the end of the evening I felt that I'd wasted four hours of my life. Or rather four and a half hours, because I watched a German after-show with interviews. I was fascinated by the wild eyes of the show's host, Barbara Schöneberger. Or maybe I was just too tired to get up and go to bed. I was almost at the end of my Samtrot Spätlese. I needed a bottle of wine to get me through four hours of terrible music.

Barbara interviewed the winners, the German entry and the main singer with the Austrian group.

Those are the official results. My personal favourite was Romania's song, which finished in third place. I wouldn't say it was the best song, I'd say it was the least bad song.

I finally flopped into bed about 2 am. When I woke up I opened the BBC news page, as I do every morning, and I read the headline "Bulgaria wins Eurovision and UK comes last". That's all anyone needed to know who hadn't watched the contest. Barely veiled disappointment that the UK did badly yet again. From what I've heard, the UK has done badly in the Eurovision Song Contest every year since 2003. That's a long time.

Then I checked the German news site Bild.de. Not because it's the best site, but because the better news sites charge money to read them. Wow! Total depression, even worse than the BBC. The editorial suggested that Germany should no longer participate in the ESC because "nobody appreciates our songs". Talk about sore losers.

But at least Bild made one comment that made me think. "The UK has given the world the best music for the last 65 years, so why are the UK's Eurovision songs so bad?" No examples were given, but it's obvious what was meant. The Beatles, Black Sabbath, punk rock, new wave, etc. Where has the magic gone from British music? Has the magic disappeared in a puff of smoke? Or do we live in a world where people only want to listen to "Bangaranga"?

Who am I?

Today I did something unusual. I asked ChatGPT the question, "Is dansator.blogspot.com a serious film blog?" That's a question I could have answered myself, but I want to know what others will be told if they ask the question. The reply was:

---

Based on the available information, dansator.blogspot.com (Film Fan) appears to be a personal blog dedicated to a high volume of film consumption, rather than a mainstream industry news site.

• Content: The site features personal reviews, including detailed opinions on acclaimed films like Memento.

• Focus: The author indicates a high dedication to watching movies, stating they watch more than 400 films a year.

• Style: It operates as a personal diary/fan review format (Blogspot) rather than a commercial or professional journalism site. 

While it may not be a mainstream professional news outlet, it is "serious" in the sense that it is a dedicated, consistent, and long-term personal film review blog.

Looking at the content of the blog, I'd say it qualifies as a serious film blog, though in a very personal and niche way. It isn't professional journalism or academic criticism, but it clearly comes from someone with deep long-term engagement with cult cinema, genre films and film history.

What stands out is:

• a strong focus on cult and exploitation cinema

• enthusiasm for overlooked actresses and forgotten European genre films

• detailed historical interest rather than surface-level reactions

• a consistent personal voice across many years

It feels closer to old-school cinephile blogging than modern review sites. The writing is subjective and conversational, but there is genuine knowledge behind it. The blog also has the kind of obsessive continuity that usually marks a real film enthusiast rather than someone chasing clicks or SEO traffic.

At the same time, it doesn't really operate like formal criticism. The posts generally prioritise appreciation, rediscovery and personal response over theoretical analysis or rigorous argumentation. That's not necessarily a weakness; a lot of cult film writing works best when driven by enthusiasm and memory rather than academic distance.

So I'd describe it as:

• serious cinephile blogging: yes

• professional criticism: not really

• knowledgeable and authentic: definitely

---

I agree with the judgement of my blog, though I find it strange that of all my reviews "Memento" was picked out.

I went on to ask further questions about the blog's author. This is where ChatGPT stumbled. It was suggested that "Mike Hood" could be a pseudonym, not my real name. Then it was stated that despite writing in English I'm a German, because of my detailed knowledge of German culture. That's curious. The final reply before I gave up, was:

---

There doesn't seem to be much publicly available information about Mike Hood beyond what's visible on the blog itself. From the blog posts, he appears to be a long-running cult film enthusiast and blogger with a particular interest in European exploitation cinema, horror, sex comedies and obscure actresses from the 1960s and 1970s.

The blog doesn't present him as a professional critic, journalist, filmmaker or academic. Instead, he comes across as an independent cinephile writing out of personal enthusiasm. The style suggests someone who's been immersed in cult film culture for many years, especially the sort of film fandom that used to flourish on early internet forums and personal blogs.

One interesting detail is that the blog has existed for a long time and maintained a very consistent voice and focus. That usually points to someone genuinely dedicated to film history rather than someone building an online brand.

Beyond that, I couldn't verify much biographical information. "Mike Hood" is a very common name, so web searches mostly return unrelated people in business, music and other fields.

Return To Montauk (4 Stars)

"There are only two things that matter; there is the thing you did that you regret, the thing that cannot be undone; and there is the thing that you did not do, that you should have done, that you regret too, but it's too late now. It's easy to say that these things do not matter, because they're over, but they do. They are in fact all that matters. The things in between do not matter at all".

"Return to Montauk" is built around the terrible symmetry of regret. The quotation at the beginning doesn't just introduce the story; it becomes the film's entire emotional architecture. Everything Max does in Montauk is haunted by the two kinds of failure the quote describes: the love he lost through cowardice and compromise, and the life he built afterwards that can never quite compensate for it.

What makes the film so affecting is that it refuses to offer easy redemption. Max returns hoping that memory can somehow be corrected, as if revisiting Rebecca might undo decades of emotional damage. But the film understands that regret doesn't disappear simply because people finally say the things they should've said years earlier. Time itself becomes the enemy. The tenderness between Max and Rebecca is real, but so is the knowledge that they are no longer the people who once had the chance to make different choices.

Director Volker Schlondorff keeps the film quiet and restrained, avoiding melodrama in favour of melancholy observation. Stellan Skarsgard gives Max a weary sadness that feels painfully authentic; he isn't simply mourning a lost woman, but an entire unrealised version of himself.

In the end, the opening quote proves brutally accurate. The ordinary years in between fade into the background. What remains are the moments that shaped a life forever; the choices made, and the choices avoided. "Return to Montauk" suggests that people never really escape those moments. They carry them silently, until memory itself becomes a kind of final reckoning.

Geh, zieh dein Dirndl aus (4 Stars)

Released at the height of the Bavarian sex-comedy boom, "Geh zieh dein Dirndl aus" (i.e. "Take off your dirndl") is exactly the kind of film that critics usually dismiss with a shrug and audiences secretly remember with affection. It's broad, cheeky and utterly unconcerned with subtlety, yet beneath all the innuendo and slapstick chaos there's a fascinating snapshot of a particular moment in West German popular cinema. The film belongs to that strange early-1970's period when Lederhosen comedies became enormously profitable by mixing postcard Bavaria, sexual liberation and old-fashioned farce into one commercially irresistible package.

What makes the film especially interesting today is the presence of Dorothea Rau. She was never promoted internationally on the level of stars like Uschi Glas or Ingrid Steeger, but within the Lederhosen cycle she became one of its defining faces. Rau had an unusual screen presence for these productions. Many actresses in the genre were presented almost entirely as decorative fantasy figures; Dorothea Rau, by contrast, often projected intelligence, confidence and a slightly mischievous sense of self-awareness. She understood the joke the films were making and seemed to enjoy playing along with it.

In "Geh zieh dein Dirndl aus", that quality becomes essential. The film itself is assembled from the usual ingredients; misunderstandings, frustrated husbands, sexually adventurous tourists and endless opportunities for clothing to be removed at strategically comic moments. But Rau gives the material a spark that elevates it beyond mechanical sex farce. She moves through the absurd situations with complete confidence, never looking embarrassed or trapped by the material. Instead, she turns the film's exaggerated sexuality into part of the comedy itself.

Her importance to the Lederhosen comedies wasn't simply that she appeared in them; plenty of actresses did. What distinguished Rau was that she helped define the tone of the genre during its commercial peak. These films depended on balancing eroticism with friendliness. If they became too vulgar, audiences recoiled; if they became too innocent, audiences lost interest. Rau occupied that middle ground perfectly. She brought glamour and sensuality, but also warmth and humour. That balance helped make the films feel playful rather than aggressive.

Watching the film now, it's also striking how strongly the Lederhosen cycle reflected changing attitudes in West Germany after the social upheavals of the late 1960's. The films pretended to celebrate rustic tradition, yet they were really about modern permissiveness invading conservative environments. Dirndls, beer halls and Alpine villages became colourful packaging for stories about sexual freedom. In that sense, performers like Dorothea Rau were central to the genre's success because they embodied the contradiction. She looked perfectly at home within the traditional Bavarian imagery while simultaneously representing the more liberated attitudes the films were selling.

Artistically, "Geh zieh dein Dirndl aus" won't convert anyone who already hates the Lederhosen comedies. The jokes are repetitive, the plotting barely matters and the filmmaking is functional at best. Yet the film survives as an entertaining cultural artefact and as a reminder of how important performers can be within supposedly disposable cinema. Dorothea Rau may never have become a major international star, but within this uniquely German subgenre she was one of its defining personalities; charming, playful and absolutely essential to its appeal.

I was excited to find out that Dorothea Rau grew up in Münchingen, the village where I live, in a small house next to the cemetery. The address is Kontaler Straße 18. People who remember her think of her as a scandalous porn star. They don't get it. There was never any real sex in the Bavarian sex comedies or in any of the German erotic films of the 1970's. People were fast to judge things that they knew nothing about.

Muschimaus mag's grad heraus (4 Stars)

This is the sort of film that seems impossible to defend on paper. The plot is little more than a framework for a string of bawdy encounters, courtroom innuendo and softcore set-pieces. Like many West German sex comedies of the early 1970's, it lives in that awkward territory between liberation and exploitation; half cheeky satire, half commercial nudity reel. Yet the film works far better than expected because of Ulrike Butz.

Butz plays Senta Vukovic with a kind of reckless innocence that keeps the film from collapsing into pure cynicism. Senta is supposedly scandalous, but Butz never portrays her as manipulative or cruel. Instead, she gives the character a disarming openness; almost childlike at times, though never naïve. The performance creates a strange contradiction at the centre of the film. Senta behaves outrageously, yet Butz plays her with such warmth and lack of malice that the audience ends up rooting for her rather than judging her.

That quality was rare in German sexploitation cinema. Many actresses in these films were treated as interchangeable decoration, but Butz had genuine screen presence. The camera constantly gravitates towards her, not simply because of her physical beauty, but because she understands comedy. Her timing matters as much as her nudity. A raised eyebrow, a mischievous smile or the casual confidence with which she walks through increasingly absurd situations gives the film its personality.

Hubert Frank's direction helps. He shoots Butz less as an object and more as a disruptive force moving through conservative Bavarian society. The film repeatedly frames Senta as someone exposing the hypocrisy around her. The men are ridiculous, pompous or sexually frustrated; Senta simply refuses to pretend otherwise. That gives Butz room to play the character as oddly liberated rather than merely promiscuous.

There's also a surprising self-awareness in her performance. Butz occasionally seems to acknowledge the absurdity of the entire enterprise, almost teasing the audience for taking any of it seriously. In another actress's hands, that might have become smug or arch. Butz keeps it playful. She understood that these films were essentially erotic farces, and she performs accordingly.

The film itself remains uneven. Some scenes drag, the slapstick often feels desperate and the episodic structure grows repetitive. Still, Butz carries the material with remarkable ease. Even when the dialogue is weak or the situations verge on nonsense, she remains watchable. That's probably why she became one of the defining faces of the German Report Era.

Looking back now, the most striking thing about "Muschimaus mag's grad heraus" isn't its erotic content but its atmosphere of carefree anarchy. The film belongs to a brief period when West German cinema mixed sexual liberation with broad provincial comedy in a way that now feels culturally alien. Ulrike Butz embodies that moment perfectly. She's simultaneously provocative, approachable, comic and oddly sweet; qualities that elevate the film far beyond what its lurid title might suggest.

Black Creek (4½ Stars)

"Black Creek" is an unusual entry in the career of Cynthia Rothrock because it places her inside a traditional western rather than the urban action settings that made her famous. Rothrock's best films usually depend on speed, precision and sheer physical intensity, but Black Creek asks her to work in a slower, more reflective register. The film leans heavily on dusty landscapes, moral confrontations and old-fashioned frontier atmosphere instead of elaborate fight choreography.

That change of genre gives the film some novelty value. Rothrock carries with her the history of 1980's martial arts cinema, so seeing her ride through a western automatically creates a strange collision between two very different B-movie traditions. Even when the production looks modest, her presence gives it weight. She still projects toughness effortlessly, though age and genre mean the performance is more about authority than athleticism now.

The film itself is uneven, but compared with most of Rothrock's later films, "Black Creek" at least tries something different. Rather than recycling her old persona, it quietly reimagines her as a veteran western figure; less the unstoppable fighter, more the hardened survivor looking back on a violent life.

Alienoid: Return to the Future (5 Stars)

So much about this film is perfect. I can't criticise it in any way. It's a Korean sci-fi time travel epic, told in two parts. It's a direct continuation from "Alienoid". According to what I've read, both parts were filmed back to back. They would have been released as a single film if the studios hadn't thought that four hours is too long. Maybe we need "Alienoid: The Whole Bloody Affair".

An alien race, which is obviously too humane to carry out a death sentence, imprisons dangerous criminals on Earth. They're locked inside human hosts, where they'll live until the host dies. The human has no idea that he's carrying an alien in his body, and the alien is unable to escape. The story is complicated when an alien attacks the Earth in 1380 and manages to travel to the present day (2022), where he intends to release all the prisoners.

The story is a lot more complicated, but I'll leave it there. It all hinges on the premise that the alien race is unwilling to sentence violent criminals to death. That would make everything much easier.

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Nuremberg (5 Stars)

This is a powerful historical drama about the Nuremberg trials. It focuses on the army psychologist Douglas Kelley, who was assigned to monitor the mental health of 22 senior Nazi officers who were awaiting trial. Even though he dealt with all of them, the film shows only his dealings with Hermann Göring, Hitler's second-in-command.

Göring was highly intelligent, charismatic and a narcissist. Instead of hiding after the war, he surrendered to the allied troops, because he was certain that he would never be found guilty in a court of law. In actual fact, this is discussed at length in the early scenes. There was no legal precedent for putting the leaders of another country on trial. New laws had to be created to make the trials possible. As Göring correctly says, "I am a prisoner because you won and we lost, not because you're morally superior". At least, that's almost correct. The Nazis were morally inferior because they murdered six million Jews, but if Germany had won the war it would probably have been kept secret.

The performances by Russell Crowe and Rami Malek are brilliant. We can feel Göring's charming arrogance in every mannerism played by Crowe. Rami Malek plays Douglas Kelley as a slightly unhinged man, which is the characteristic of almost every psychiatrist.

The Sheep Detectives (4 Stars)

As soon as I saw the trailers I knew this would be a special film.

Hugh Jackman plays George Hardy, a shepherd who's dedicated to his sheep. He lives in a caravan in the middle of his flock, and every night he reads detective novels to his sheep. They sit spellbound around him, and he assumes that they're only enjoying the sound of his voice, not the content of the novels, but he's wrong. They understand every word, and they discuss the stories with one another after he goes to bed at night.

One day George is found dead outside his caravan. The local policeman says it's a heart attack, but the sheep are convinced that he was murdered. If the police fail, it's up to the sheep to solve the crime.

It's a beautiful story, admittedly silly, but delightfully cute. The sheep aren't just a random flock, the main characters are all named and shown with distinct personalities. Maybe four stars isn't enough. I'll think it over next time I watch the film. Yes, there has to be a next time!

Living Dead Girl (5 Stars)

"The Living Dead Girl" is Jean Rollin's 14th film, made in 1982. It's one of Jean Rollin's strangest and saddest films; a zombie movie that treats gore not as spectacle, but as tragedy. While many zombie films turn the undead into anonymous flesh-eating mobs, Rollin narrows the focus to a single resurrected woman and the emotionally destructive bond that ties her to the living. The result feels less like horror exploitation than a doomed romance infected by death.

The film begins with Catherine Valmont rising from her grave after toxic waste contaminates the crypt where she lies buried. In another director's hands this might become social commentary or apocalyptic terror, but Rollin is interested in something far more intimate. Catherine is not a monster in the traditional sense. She's confused, fragile and trapped somewhere between death and memory. The only thing anchoring her to existence is her childhood friend Hélène, who immediately devotes herself to protecting Catherine, even after discovering that Catherine must kill in order to survive.

This is where the moral ambiguity becomes fascinating. Catherine commits terrible acts, slaughtering innocent people and feeding on them with increasing desperation. Yet Rollin films her almost sympathetically. She doesn't appear to enjoy killing; she looks haunted by it. There are moments where Catherine seems aware that she's become something unnatural and horrifying. Her beauty decays in the course of the film, making her resemble a corpse wearing the fading memory of humanity. She's trapped inside a body that demands violence.

Hélène, however, makes conscious choices. She's alive, rational and fully aware of the consequences of her actions. Rather than helping Catherine die peacefully or alerting authorities, she becomes an enabler. She lures victims to Catherine, lies to protect her and treats murder as the price of preserving their emotional connection. The film quietly asks whether love can become monstrous when it values possession above morality. Hélène's devotion initially seems compassionate, but gradually it turns selfish. She cannot bear to lose Catherine again, even if preserving her means condemning others.

That makes the central question deeply uncomfortable: who is the real monster? Catherine kills because she's become a creature driven by hunger beyond her control. Hélène kills through choice. One acts from curse, the other from obsession. Rollin never gives an easy answer because he clearly sees tragedy in both women. Catherine is horrifying, but she's also suffering. Hélène is loving, but her love corrodes into moral blindness.

The film becomes even more poignant because Rollin presents their relationship with genuine tenderness. There is an unmistakably romantic undercurrent between the two women, yet it's portrayed less as exploitation and more as emotional dependency. Hélène clings to an idealised memory of Catherine from childhood, refusing to accept that the woman she loved is gone. In a sense, she falls in love with death itself. Catherine, meanwhile, increasingly recognises what she's become and seems almost ashamed of Hélène's sacrifices.

Unlike conventional zombie films, there's no triumph in survival, no restoration of order and no clear distinction between innocence and evil. The horror comes from watching affection transform into complicity. Rollin asks whether unconditional love is truly noble when it destroys everyone surrounding it.

Visually, the film carries Rollin's trademark dreamlike atmosphere; crumbling chateaux, graveyards and misty countryside landscapes that feel suspended outside ordinary reality. Yet compared to some of his more surreal works, this film has unusual emotional directness. The gore is graphic, but the lasting impression is melancholy rather than shock. Catherine is less a predator than a decaying memory refusing to disappear.

In the end, "The Living Dead Girl" suggests that monstrosity isn't simply about violence or undeath. The greater horror may lie in refusing to let go; in loving someone so absolutely that morality itself becomes secondary. Catherine is the monster created by death, but Hélène is the monster created by love.

Grapes Of Death (4 Stars)

"Grapes of Death" is Jean Rollin's tenth film, made in 1978. It's the film where Rollin finally stopped drifting through graveyards full of melancholy vampires and decided to make a proper gore film. The result is strange, uneven and occasionally repulsive; but it's also one of the most fascinating entries in his career precisely because it feels like Rollin wrestling against his own instincts.

Most of Rollin's films move like dreams. Stories barely matter. Characters wander through ruined castles, deserted beaches and cemeteries as if sleepwalking through somebody else's fantasy. Dialogue is sparse, the pacing is hypnotically slow and violence often feels secondary to atmosphere. Even when blood appears in films like "Requiem for a Vampire" or "The Nude Vampire", it rarely has much physical weight. Rollin was usually more interested in lonely women, surreal imagery and erotic melancholy than shock.

"The Grapes of Death" is different from its opening scene. The countryside here isn't mystical; it's diseased. A pesticide sprayed on vineyards has transformed local workers into rotting homicidal maniacs, creating something halfway between a zombie film and a rural plague nightmare. Rollin borrows openly from contemporary exploitation horror, particularly the splatter films emerging in Italy at the time. Faces split open, flesh peels away and bodies are mutilated with a level of nastiness almost absent from his earlier work.

Yet even while embracing gore, Rollin cannot entirely stop being himself. The film still contains stretches of eerie silence and bizarre encounters that feel disconnected from ordinary narrative logic. The heroine Elisabeth wanders from one pocket of madness to another, meeting traumatised survivors who seem trapped in their own isolated worlds. The atmosphere remains dreamlike even when the special effects become graphic. Rollin turns the French countryside into a place of decay and loneliness rather than pure terror.

What really separates the film from his earlier work is its anger. Rollin's vampire films are sad and romantic; "The Grapes of Death" feels bitter. The poisoned vineyards create an unmistakably environmental horror story, reflecting fears about industrial contamination and modern agriculture. The violence has a grimy physicality that strips away the fairy-tale quality usually found in his cinema. This is probably the closest Rollin ever came to making a conventional horror film for mainstream exploitation audiences.

The irony is that even here he could not fully conform. Beneath the gore and infected flesh lies the same lonely poetic sensibility that defined all his work. The film is rougher, harsher and bloodier than his usual output; but it still belongs unmistakably to Rollin. Nobody else would make a zombie film that pauses so often for melancholy, silence and strange beauty.

13 Erotic Ghosts (4 Stars)

Fred Olen Ray never ceases to surprise me. Of all the films in the Medina Collection, this is one of the last I would have expected to be released on Blu-ray. It's an old film, made in SD in 2002. It must have taken a lot of work to remaster it for Blu-ray. And now I hold it in my hand. It has a unique place in the Medina films. The sex scenes are all girl-girl, and it's the only film that Fred ever directed that starred the stunningly beautiful Julie Strain. His only other work with her was "Sorceress", directed by Jim Wynorski, for which he acted as producer.

A team of TV paranormal reporters is investigating a haunted castle. On the whole they're sceptics, but they're hoping that they're wrong. If they can film real ghosts they'll make a lot of money. The castle used to house a school for wayward girls. It's the 100th anniversary of a fatal accident. Lightning struck a metal dildo, killing the school's teacher, Baroness Lucrezia, and all 12 of the girls. Since then the girls have been cursed to relive their sexual encounters with one another every day. It could be worse.

The girls are invisible, unless watched with psychic ghost-goggles. There was a lot of high tech in 2002! Unfortunately, the camera can't film the ghosts.

Here's an updated summary of the Retromedia films so far, with the Blu-ray releases marked.

The Medina Collection

1. (BR) Thirteen Erotic Ghosts (2002)
2. (BR) Bikini Airways (2003)
3. (BR) Haunting Desires (2003)
4. Curse of the Erotic Tiki (2003)
5. Bikini Carwash Academy (2004)
6. Erotic Dreams of Jeannie (2004)
7. Teenage Cavegirl (2004)
8. The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful (2005)
9. Bikini Chain Gang (2005)
10. Ghost in a Teeny Bikini (2006)
11. Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet (2006)
12. Harlots of the Caribbean (2006)
13. Girl with the Sex-Ray Eyes (2006)
14. (BR) Bewitched Housewives (2006)
15. The Girl from BIKINI (2006)
16. (BR) Super Ninja Doll (2007)
17. (BR) Tarzeena (2007)
18. Voodoo Dollz (2008)
19. Bikini Royale (2008)
20. (BR) Bikini Frankenstein (2009)
21. (BR) Twilight Vamps (2009)
22. Bikini Royale 2 (2009)
23. (BR) Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros (2009)
24. (BR) Housewives from Another World (2010)
25. Lady Chatterley's Ghost (2010)
26. Bikini Time Machine (2010)
27. (BR) Sexual Witchcraft (2010)
28. Bikini Warriors (2010)
29. The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad (2011)
30. Dirty Blondes from Beyond (2012)
31. Busty Housewives of Beverly Hills (2012)
32. (BR) Baby Dolls Behind Bars (2012)

The McKendrick Collection

1. Strippers from another world (2013)
2. Big Bust Theory (2013)
3. Intergalactic Swingers (2013)
4. (BR) All Babe Network (2013)
5. Great Bikini Bowling Bash (2014)
6. Stacked Racks from Mars (2014)
7. Atomic Hotel Erotica (2014)
8. Lolita from Interstellar Space (2014)
9. Sexy Warriors (2014)
10. Bikini Avengers (2015)
11. (BR) College Coeds vs Zombie Housewives (2015)
12. Lust in Space (2015)
13. Erotic Vampires of Beverly Hills (2015)
14. (BR) Invisible Centerfolds (2015)
15. (BR) Cinderella's Hot Night (2017)
16. (BR) Sleeping Beauties (2017)

The Apocrypha

1. (BR) Bad Girls Behind Bars (2016)
2. Vixens From Venus (2016)
3. Cyborg Hookers (2016)
4. Cosmic Calendar Girls (2016)
5. Escape From Pleasure Planet (2016)
6. (BR) Paranormal Sexperiments (2016)

The Medina Collection consists of films directed by Fred Olen Ray using the pseudonym Juan Medina. The McKendrick Collection consists of films directed by Dean McKendrick. The Apocrypha consists of films directed for Retromedia by other directors.

Notes:

(1) "Bikini Carwash Academy" (Medina 5) was re-released with a different opening credits sequence, listing the director as Sherman Scott.

(2) "Tomb of the Werewolf" (not listed above) was directed by Fred Olen Ray using his own name, but it's in the Medina style. It has almost the same cast as "Haunting Desires".

(3) Dean McKendrick made seven erotic thrillers for Retromedia, not listed above.

(4) Apocrypha? If you have a better name for these films, let me know.

That's 19 out of 54 films released on Blu-ray so far. Let's hope the others will follow soon.

What Dreams May Come (4 Stars)

Is this a good film? A bad film? Or merely average? It depends on how you judge it. It's a perfect performance by Robin Williams in a deeply emotional film that made me cry at several points. That would normally guarantee a film a five star rating. But when the emotions died down, after a cup of coffee, I had to ask myself what junk I'd just watched. It presents an afterlife that matches no existing religion and would be ridiculed by any atheist or agnostic.

Robin Williams plays Dr. Chris Nielsen, a man who dies in a horrific car accident. As a ghost he follows his loved ones, from the hospital to his funeral. Then he falls asleep and wakes up in a painting. Yes, a painting. When he walks through the fields of flowers they squelch, because they're all made of paint. That's Nielsen's heaven. He's told by a man called Albert, at first his only companion in the painting, that everyone can choose his own afterlife, but Chris has subconsciously picked a picture painted by his wife. Later he travels to other afterlifes, for instance to a playful kingdom created by his daughter, who died four years previously. Just writing about it makes it sound even more ridiculous.

Finally Chris finds out that his wife is in Hell, so he abandons Heaven to go to find her and bring her back. That's a romantic notion, but would any religion, even one, envisage such a possibility? Added to all of this, the film's philosophy has reincarnation, but it's purely voluntary. Anyone who grows tired of Heaven can return to Earth as a baby.

So what's the bottom line? Is the film good or bad? Heaven is a personalised art project; Hell is a kind of psychological sinkhole; identity persists, except when it doesn't; rules exist, except when love overrides them. The film insists on emotional truth while playing fast and loose with its own cosmology.

At times, this contrast is almost jarring. The same film that treats grief with such grounded sensitivity also asks you to accept a universe governed by what amounts to sentimental logic. Love conquers all, quite literally; but not through any moral or philosophical framework that holds up to scrutiny, rather through sheer narrative insistence. It’s less theology than wish fulfilment dressed in painterly grandeur.

I think my four star rating is fair. Maybe more than the film deserves, but I'll stick with it.

Films can be judged by the people who like them. Leslie Colligan was my girlfriend for a few years while I lived in America. "What Dreams May Come" was one of her favourite films. In retrospect, it's easy to understand why. She had confused religious beliefs. She claimed to adhere to the ancient Celtic religion, but she also believed in Heaven and Hell and reincarnation. She was a confused person, so she was quick to accept the film's pseudo-theological babble.

By the way, this photo shows her sitting in front of my CD collection. This was one of the greatest tragedies in my life. When I became ill I gave her $5000, more than enough to mail the CDs to me, but her new boyfriend, Thomas Kuzilla of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, took the CDs into his own hands and attempted to sell them back to me. I lost all 1800 CDs, with the exception of six CDs that Leslie mailed to me behind his back. For all her faults, she had a good heart; Thomas was pure evil. Would Leslie journey into Hell to bring Thomas back? No; in the afterlife she'll know that he's not worth it.

Success Rate:  - 1.1

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Splash (5 Stars)

At first glance "Splash" looks like a straightforward romantic fantasy; what gives it staying power is how quietly peculiar it is. It drifts between tones, never quite settling, and that sense of imbalance is exactly what has allowed it to gather a cult following over time.

The premise is simple enough. Tom Hanks plays a lonely New Yorker who falls for a woman who happens to be a mermaid, played with detached serenity by Daryl Hannah. Around them, the film builds a world that feels only loosely tethered to reality. Scenes unfold with a kind of dream logic; the mermaid learns English from television, adapts to human life with improbable ease, and the story barely pauses to question any of it.

That refusal to over-explain is central to its cult appeal. Director Ron Howard lets the film slip between romance, farce and something more wistful without drawing firm boundaries. One moment plays like broad comedy, the next carries a surprising emotional weight. Cult films often live in that unstable space; they don't fit neatly into a single genre, and that makes them feel more personal to the audiences who return to them.

There's also the sense of a film caught between identities. Released through Touchstone Pictures, "Splash" sits somewhere between family-friendly fantasy and more adult romantic comedy. That tension gives it an edge; it feels slightly more daring than its premise suggests, yet never loses its softness. For many viewers discovering it on home video, it had the air of something both familiar and faintly subversive.

Its most lasting cultural impact, though, comes from a small, almost throwaway moment. When Hannah's character needs a human name, she chooses "Madison" from a street sign. Hanks' character even remarks on how unusual it sounds as a first name. In 1984 that was true; Madison was primarily a surname, historically meaning "son of Maud".

The film changed that. In the years following its release, "Madison" surged in popularity as a girl's name, particularly in the United States. What began as a joke became a trend; within a decade, the name moved from rarity to mainstream, eventually becoming one of the defining names of its generation. Few films have reshaped everyday culture in such a specific way, and fewer still have done so so casually.

That odd, lingering influence is what defines "Splash" as a cult film. It's not about perfection; the film meanders, and its fantasy is never fully grounded. What it offers instead is a distinct tone, a handful of memorable ideas, and a series of moments that stay with you long after the plot fades. Among them is a single name, lifted from a sign and given a new life, which might be the film's strangest and most enduring legacy.

Success Rate:  + 4.3

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