VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON (1982)

Scare-A-Thon Totals to Date:

Total Movies Watched: 26
Total First Time Views:14
Amount raised for BOXVILLE: $2,140.32

Violence in a Women’s Prison (1982) d. Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn) (Italy) (90 min) (1st viewing)

Convicted sex worker Laura Kendall (Laura Gemser) is sentenced to serve out her time at a remote penitentiary far from the prying eyes of good taste and housekeeping. Packed to the rafters with sadistic jackbooted watchdogs and overseen by the sneering warden (Lorraine De Selle) and her second-in-command Rescaut (Franca Stoppi), both depraved sexual deviants, Laura must create alliances with whomever she can if she is to survive her horrifying ordeal.

CRUEL JAWS (1995) Blu-ray Review

SCARE-A-THON Totals to Date:

Total Movies Watched: 4
Total First Time Views: 3
Amount raised for BOXVILLE: $232.20

Cruel Jaws (1995) d. Bruno Mattei (as William Snyder) (Italy) (93 min) (1st viewing)

Released in some countries as Jaws 5, this decades-late Italian copycat doesn’t even bother to shoot any original shark menace footage for its action scenes. Instead, it nabs footage from countrymen Joe D’Amato (Deep Blood) and Enzo G. Castellari (The Last Shark), as well as going right to Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic well itself for underwater swimming and munching footage. But that’s not all director Mattei (Robowar, Night Killer, The Other Hell) “borrows” – there are direct character and plot references to Jaws, Jaws 2, Jaws 3, as well as the regatta race from The Last Shark.

NIGHT KILLER (1990) Blu-ray Review

Night Killer (1990) d. Claudio Fragasso (as Clyde Anderson) (Italy) (93 min)

A rubber-masked serial killer starts working his way through the unsuspecting inhabitants of Virginia Beach, VA – and I do mean THROUGH, as in he punches holes through their torsos using a Freddy Krueger-type taloned glove – until he comes to beautiful, frustrated, and recently separated mother Melanie Beck (Tara Buckman) who he subjects to an hours-long ordeal from which she escapes alive but traumatized to the point of amnesia. Suicidal and emotionally distraught, she is subsequently stalked by a stranger (Peter Hooten) who stops her from killing herself on the beach, but then kidnaps her and forces to play kinky sexual games in a secluded hotel room. Meanwhile the murders continue unabated – are they being committed by the same person holding Melanie captive and will she recover her memory in time to identify the killer?

ROBOWAR (1988) Blu-ray Review

Robowar (1988) d. Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn) (Italy) (92 min)

After a platoon goes missing, Major Murphy Black’s (Reb Brown) elite team of mercenaries is sent into the bush to learn what happened and rescue any survivors, with company man Mascher (Mel Davidson) in tow. What they discover is a slaughterhouse of carnage, carried out by a high-tech android whose mission is to search and destroy all human targets with extreme prejudice. After locating a single survivor (Catherine Hickland) from a humanitarian group, Black’s team is slowly picked off one by one, their every move anticipated by the advanced cyber-warrior. Ultimately, it will be Man vs. Machine in a Mano a Mano of Mayhem!

THE OTHER HELL (1980) Blu-ray review

The Other Hell (1980) d. Mattei, Bruno (Italy) (1st viewing) 88 min

Back in the day when he and fellow countryman and schlock merchant Claudio Fragasso (Rats: Nights of Terror, Troll 2) would pretty much wander back and forth between each other’s sets and trade off directing scenes, Mattei conjured this outrageous slice of Nunsploitation that does it utmost to shock and awe and urggghhhh at every turn.