Red-Barracuda

Back in '83/'84 there were a plethora of sword and sorcery b-movies being made to cash-in on the success of Conan. Needless to say, the Italians got very involved with this and many of their prominent genre directors chipped in with an offering of their own. To that end, the goremeister general himself Lucio Fulci knocked out Conquest. The basis of its story is put forward with a scene on a beach where the dialogue is so inaudible that you are left with no alternative than to just assume that what we are about to see has some point. What in boils down to is a wimpy hero with a magic bow, who teams up with a Conanesque barbarian to battle an evil topless sorceress and her wolf-men minions! To be fair, that really is all you need to know because I don't think coherence was a prominent consideration with this one and, like other movies of its category, it essentially boils down to a journey punctuated regularly with encounters with all manner of ridiculous events. This basic template has ensured that the 80's sword and sorcery movies are one of the most reliably entertaining - they're hardly ever great exactly but their format means they tend to avoid (too much) tedium.

Conquest is both typical and distinctive of its genre. Typical in that the story, characters and setting is thoroughly ten-a-penny but distinctive in that Fulci has made some unusual choices. For one, the look is atypical, with constant foggy landscapes and what can only be described as VaselineVision - while I do commend the attempt to create a fantasy world with this, I am still not convinced it's a very good idea. The second Fulci factor in this one, is the graphic violence, which is WAY more full-on than these films usually go - the highlight of this involves a cavegirl being literally ripped in half, with her entrails poring out! Fulci also delivers unusual moments such as zombies in a swamp and a great underwater scene where dolphins save a chained-up man! The film deviates from usual rules in other ways too, with our heroes nonchalantly and completely unnecessarily killing a poor schmuck minding his own business and then laughing about it, while there is also a finale which involves the death of a major character which was somewhat pleasingly surprising. You've also got regular S&S barbarian girl Sabrina Siani in this one as the sorceress. She spends the whole runtime topless in a g-string and gold-mask, which may sound good on paper but she is such a looker, you kind or wonder why she was stuck having to hide her coupon the whole film! Unfortunately, aside from Sabrina, this was very much too much of a sausage-fest for my liking, with a couple of especially uninteresting male characters leading the charge - they should definitely have swapped one of them out for a hot barbarian girl! Finally, it would be remiss to not acknowledge that this one also benefits from sporting a nice moody synth score from legendary Goblin, Claudio Simonetti.

Overall, this one is definitely required viewing if you appreciate the salacious Conan rip-offs of the 80's and it certainly differentiates itself from the pack in several ways, even if it is(pleasingly) more of the same from this sub-genre.

The discover of a strange giant skull in a Roman archaeological site, leads a group of folks to an immortal giant worm and its snake woman keeper. This British horror-comedy is the work of Ken Russell, a director who could never be accused of being subtle. In this one he adapts Dracula author Bram Stoker's final novel, which by all accounts is very bad indeed. Well, the good news is that its cinematic equivalent is tons of fun.

Russell brings his pleasing over-the-top aesthetic to the table once again. To that end we have psychedelic visions of worm-based Roman decadence and violence, sacrilegious imagery, strange dreams on a jet airliner and an extremely seductive and scantily clad villainess. The latter is played to perfection by Amanda Donohoe, who proves to be the trump card of the entire enterprise. Kitted out in a selection of great outfits, she is the sinister Lady Sylvia Marsh to perfection, with an intoxicating combination of sexiness, humour and sass, all with a delightful English upper-class accent. She plays the clothing-averse vampiresque snake woman who at one point hilariously picks up a hitchhiking boy scout, which needless to say, ends in tears. Acting-wise there are several others putting in good work, such as Hugh Grant, Dynasy's Catherine Oxenberg and future Dr Who Peter Capaldi but there's no question that Donohoe is most certainly the star attraction here.

Russell, of course, brings a lot to the table too and seems mostly in his element when the visuals are at their most provocative and flamboyant. The airplane sequence is a hoot and the Roman flashbacks are full-on, even if the use of green-screen in these is, shall we say, a bit wonky! The film as a whole, definitely doesn't take itself very seriously but it has managed to navigate the tricky path of integrating humour, horror and eroticism very well together. Altogether, there's really quite a lot to like here.

Directed by Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) this is a biopic which charts the rise of Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt and his subsequent problems with the law. There's some fine acting in this one, with Woody Harrelson doing good work as the title character and maybe even better Courtney Love putting in a pretty fearless performance as his loose-cannon wife Althea Leisure; Larry Flynt himself appears in a cameo as a judge.

As a biopic, there is extremely little about his pre-porn life, which isn't necessarily a bad thing really as it allows us to just cut to the chase and get on with it. For the first half, it's a pretty involving movie which details Flynt's rise to prominence culminating with the assassination attempt on his life. Things do fall a bit flatter in the second half, mainly due to the film basically becoming a courtroom drama, which is not exactly one of the most dynamic genres of cinema. Still, as a whole, this is a good film which showcases a guy who had a somewhat colourful life.