Episode 42 - And Through the Woods

This episode, Mike and Marty took the podcast out into the woods, for a fun camping trip and then things started to go horribly wrong.  We look at two films which follow in the footsteps of many previous films but perhaps most obviously, John Boorman's 1972 classic Deliverance.  The first we look at is Rituals from 1977.  Starring Hal Holbrook and a small group of very talented actors, and featuring a really top notch script, this was a truly delightful surprise.  It is a grueling experience as the viewer follows a group of doctors who are on an expedition to "The Cauldron" and run into something in the woods that clearly wants them to leave.  We follow that up with 1981's Just Before Dawn, directed by Jeff Lieberman who gave us the only "killer earthworm" film we've ever seen, Squirm.  Chris Lemmon and Gregg Henry are the leaders of a group of young people who intend to explore a remote forest area, despite the ominous warnings of both the creepy locals and the resident park ranger, played by the wonderful George Kennedy. There is much disco-dancing and crazy disregard for the dangers that surround the foolhardy campers, as well as the requisite drunken-coot and inbred hill-family, but still the movie falls totally flat.  Listen in to the conversation and see if you want to give either of these a shot, maybe you could watch them on your next camping trip.
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Episode 41 - Soft as an Easy Chair

The cave has filled with thoughts of love this episode.  We look at two movies where love is in the title AND makes up the core element of the plots. First up is 1969's The Psycho Lover, written and directed by Robert Vincent O'Neill who would later write Vice Squad ( which we covered in episode 22 ).  It is the story of a psychiatrist, who is helping the police with a series of brutal rape/murders, and how he comes up with a nefarious scheme to get himself out of an unhappy marriage.  Really good dialogue and some far-out technology elevate this one above many others of it's ilk.  We follow that up with 1973's Love Me Deadly which stars the one and only Lyle Waggoner.  If you're a fan of this podcast, when you hear the word necrophilia, you might think of Nekromantik, but THIS little beauty covered the same territory 15 years earlier!  A very strange mishmash of Harlequin Romance and Satanic Cultism, this is neither fish nor fowl.  Is it worth your 90 minutes though? Listen in and see if you feel like giving it a shot. Please write to us and let us know what you thought of the show and send along your own suggestions for strange little films that you think more people should see.  You can reach us at flickersfrom@yahoo.com or flickersfrom@gmail.com or by leaving a message on our Facebook page.

Episode 40 - Domo Deodato

Well well well, we have finally reached a personal landmark for Flickers From the Cave, our 40^th episode! We appreciate those of you who have hung with us through this journey and welcome all newcomers. As any regular listeners will be aware, we have a serious soft spot for Italian genre cinema, so it seems only fitting that we celebrate this auspicious occasion with a double hit from director extraordinaire Ruggero Deodato. The man who had the cinematic temerity to unleash Cannibal Holocaust on an unsuspecting public has a long list of accomplishments under his belt and the films on this episode are two of his best. First up is 1980's House On The Edge Of The Park, a vicious home invasion film and, secondly, 1985's Cut And Run, a rollicking action adventure opus with generous dollops of patented Deodato flavor to make it a flick to be reckoned with. We hope you guys enjoy this episode and please feel free to contact us at flickersfrom@gmail.com or flickersfrom@yahoo.com, leave a message on our Facebook page or write a review on Itunes. Thanks again for coming along with us on this ride and stay tuned for more!

Episode 39 - Best Served Cold

The Rape-Revenge genre is one of the most used of all the various themes in exploitation films.  We chose two from the early 80s to look at for this episode. Starting off with 1981's Ms. 45, directed by Abel Ferrara, which tells the tale of Thana, a young mute woman in New York City, working as a seamstress who suffers two brutal sexual assaults on the same day.  She then sets out to take revenge on multiple random men she encounters over the next week or two. It is a gritty and grimy story, as is common for Ferrara's films, with solid performances and a morally challenging storyline.  We follow that up with 1984's Savage Streets, which stars the sensational Linda Blair as Brenda, leader of a group of teenage "ne'er do wells".  After a run-in with the "Scars", a gang of tough guys led by a very impressive Robert Dryer as Jake,  the Scars decide to seek payback with a truly horrific rape of Brenda's younger, deaf-mute, sister played by screamqueen  Linnea Quiqley. It then falls on Brenda to get revenge for that attack, which she does to a sensational, 80's rock score.  We chose these two films without realizing that both featured victims who were mute. Despite this and many other similarities, they could not be more disparate. Please let us know what you thought of the show by writing to us at flickersfrom@yahoo.com or flickersfrom@gmail.com or by posting a message on our Facebook page.

Episode 38 - Beyond the Cave

Back in 1974, Mike and Marty remember being terrified by the trailer for a little film called Beyond the Door. Admittedly a rip-off of the enormously successful Exorcist with a touch of Rosemary's Baby, the film raked in cash from a public starving for tales of possession and evil fetuses ( feti ? ). Three years later, a Mario Bava film, originally titled "Schock" was released under the misleading title Beyond the Door 2.  The only thing consistent between the two films is one of the actors, but playing an ENTIRELY different part.  This was a total attempt to cash in on the success of the first film.  Over ten years later, producer Ovidio Assanitis had completed a film to be titled "Amok Train" but thought their might still be some value in changing the title to the completely baffling Beyond the Door 3.  There is zero common-ground between that film and the original in the "trilogy" and yet still, it exists.
The first film is solidly entertaining and packed with WTF moments and a few genuinely creepy moments.  The second film is by Mario Bava, one of the true maestros of Italian cinema, and is very much worthy of your time as a solid haunted-house movie with some great twists and turns.  The third film is 100% crap, and yet still entertaining if you don't mind suffering through bad story, acting and special effects.
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Episode 37 - The Penis is Evil

John Boorman has given us many great films over his illustrious career. Two of our All-Time favorites are Deliverance and Excalibur.  Before he brought us his version of the incredible James Dickey novel though, he gave the world 1967's Point Blank which stars Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson and features the debut of John Vernon.  This is a twisty story of criminals and double-crosses, of organizations and the man who stands up against them. It is the story of Walker, who wants his 93K, no matter what.  A brilliantly realized film, technically excellent and featuring a very challenging narrative.  Played very low-key, this surely set the tone for the world would expect from cinema in the 70s.  After Boorman had given the world Deliverance, he was given free reign for his follow-up, so he wrote and directed a real mind-bender, 1974's Zardoz.  Featuring surreal imagery, subtle technology, and enough satire to choke a horse, this is an unfairly lambasted effort.  Starring James Bond himself, Sean Connery, it is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where armed bands of Exterminators follow the command of huge, floating stone head, to wipe the earth clean of brutals. Your choices with Zardoz are to laugh AT it or to laugh WITH it, as it is both serious and also purposely goofy.  Watch it twice, watch it three times, and show it to others, just to see the WTF look on their faces.
Please let us know what you thought of the show by sending mail to flickersfrom@yahoo.com or flickersfrom@gmail.com or by leaving us a message on our Facebook page.

Episode 36 - Like Father Like Son

Episode 36 of the podcast turns to one of our favorite filmmakers, David Cronenberg, and his son Brandon who seems intent on following in his father's footsteps. We start off by looking at the elder Cronenberg's 1979 feature The Brood. Starring Art Hindle, Oliver Reed and the incredible Samantha Eggar, it tells the story of a father who wants only the best for his young daughter while his wife undergoes a mysterious psychological treatment at an isolated retreat. It still packs a wallop and asks questions that are still pertinent. We then turn to Brandon's feature debut, 2012's Antiviral.  Starring Caleb Landry Jones and with a guest appearance by Malcolm McDowell, it posits an alternate present where our celebrity-obsessed culture has taken things to a whole new level, incorporating the virus of famous people into our own bodies. This film has ideas that are big and uncomfortable and fascinating on many levels.
David Cronenberg could be considered the father of body-horror cinema, and we close out the show talking about some of our favorite and yet lesser-known films from his career.
Please let us know what you thought of the show by sending email to flickersfrom@yahoo.com  or  flickersfrom@gmail.com.  You can also leave a message for us over at our Facebook page.

Episode 35 - Zedd's Dead

 

Episode 35 of the podcast is a departure from the format of previous shows. We look at two incredible documentaries that foucs on the late 70s and early 80s of New York City and the largely underground art and music that was being created there at that time. We specifically focus on the Cinema of Transgression and the artists who were part of that movement. The two documentaries we look at are Llik Your Idols which is available on Vimeo, and Blank City which is streaming currently on Netflix. After exploring the two documentaries, we talk about two films that were part of the transgressive movement, Geek Maggot Bingo and They Eat Scum, both from the man who wrote the Cinema of Transgression Manifesto, Nick Zedd.  It was a wild time in the Big Apple, and these films help to give a glimpse of what it was like in those days.

The conversation rambles a bit, and if you've never seen Losman's Lair, you owe it to yourself to check it out over on the Wayback Machine here.

Let us know what you thought of the show by sending email to flickersfrom@yahoo.com or flickersfrom@gmail.com. You can also post a message on the Facebook page.

Episode 34 - Bruceless and Ruthless

Episode 34 features two films that seem, on the surface, to have only David Carradine in common.  The connections go deeper though, since both films were originally slated to star Bruce Lee before his untimely death in 1973. We start with 1978s Circle of Iron, AKA "The Silent Flute". This film has quite an impressive cast, including Mr. Carradine, Roddy McDowall, Christopher Lee and Eli Wallach in a thoroughly bizarre role. It tells the story of Cord the Seeker who seeks to defeat the wizard Zetan and gain the book of knowledge. Originally written by Bruce Lee and James Coburn as a means to spread the ideas of Zen Buddhism to the larger world and as a starring vehicle for the two of them, it eventually was brought to life after Lee's death and is impressive on many levels.  The second film is 1983's Lone Wolf McQuade which features the one and only Chuck Norris as an iconoclastic Texas Ranger who faces off against Mr. Carradine's gun-running social-climber. Barbara Carrera and L.Q. Jones both show up, as does William Sanderson in a small but excellent performance as a toady named Snow.  This is brimming with testosterone and chest hair, in a good way.  Please let us know what you thought of the podcast by sending email to flickersfrom@yahoo.com or flickersfrom@gmail.com or by leaving us a message on our Facebook page.

Episode 33 - Now on the Dollar Menu

The two films we cover on Episode 33 have one thing in common, and that is McBain!  We start off with the eponymous 1991 film McBain starring the almost always watchable Christopher Walken as the titular character.  It is hard to believe how catatonic Walken is as he stumbles through this film from the usually reliable James Glickenhaus.  We then turn to the incredibly fun Bulletproof from 1988 starring the always-toothy Gary Busey as an entirely different McBain.  Leaping from trope to trope and plot-hole to plot-hole, this movie is fun fun fun. There is a tank called the Thunderblast, an RPG-wielding Danny Trejo, and multiple uses of the phrase Butthorn!  What more can you ask from a movie?  Please let us know what you thought of the show by sending email to flickersfrom@yahoo.com or flickersfrom@gmail.com or you can leave us your thoughts on the Facebook page.