box (art) frenzy.

For your enjoyment, a selection of quality covers from the late, great Video Classics collection that will (and have) served as inspiration for many a struggling young artist.

If only today's covers had half the flair.

yor blimey!

Yor - The Hunter Of The Future (AKA Yor, The World of Yor, 1983)

Dir: Antonio Margheriti (As Anthony M. Dawson)

Cast: Reb Brown, Corinne Clery, Luciano Pigozzi, Carole André, John Steiner, Marina Rocchi, Sergio Nicolai Ayshe Gul and the legendary Aytekin Akkaya.

Kalaa: Why is Yor different from other men?

In a world where dinosaurs rule and bit part Italian actors roam the woods in flea bitten loincloths comes the mighty warrior Yor (ex pro-footballer, Captain America and deputy sheriff Brown); oiled, toned and muscled yet with the running prowess of a small girl.

He looks good in furry pants tho'.

Somewhere in the bushes Kalaa and Pag (ex Bond babe Clery and the tramp like Pigozzi) are hunting a piglet with wooden horns stuck to its body but as they grab the poor embarrassed animal a giant Cardboardasaurus crashes thru' the trees.

Kalaa is frozen with fear and Pag can only scream and wobble his man breasts as the beast lurches towards them...

Luckily Yor comes bounding to the rescue, beating the dinosaur around the head with a big stone axe till it falls over.

Phew.

"Yor going home in a St. Johns ambulance!"

As a way of saying thank you they invite Yor back to their village for a big party and, not having anything planned he accepts.

Enjoying an evening of mead and bacon (and with the chance of a shag from Kalaa who appears to be the only non-bearded woman there) Yor is understandably upset when a gang of face painted ape men gatecrash the party and set fire to the village hall before tossing Yor off a nearby cliff and kidnapping Kalaa.

The Pussycat Dolls tribute band
was a wee bit disappointing.

It seems that there are no ape women so every so often the scruffy ape men attack the friendly tribe looking for posh totty to use as 'lurve slaves'. Yor (who has climbed all the way back up the cliff) is adamant that if anyone is going to have their wicked way with Kalaa it's going to be him.

Yor heads off towards the ape lair with Pag in tow where, hiding in a tree they observe the scary (and somewhat arousing) sight of dozens of bikini clad ladies being oogled by the noisy band of cheeky (not to mention horny) monkeys.

"Laugh now!"

If that wasn't enough Ukraan, leader of the apes is rubbing his hairy palms together and licking his lips whilst advancing on a cornered Kalaa.

There's only one course of action open to our hero obviously so killing a nearby giant bat he uses the animals carcass to glide into the ape den and release Kalaa before smashing a nearby dike and flooding the camp.

Please note that he makes no attempt to rescue the other captives who obviously are either drowned or left to spend the rest of their lives having every one of their orifices violated by bananas.

What a guy.

Leaving the scene of carnage behind them Yor explains that he is trying to discover 'the secrets of his past' (and find out why all the other men look like lank haired bearded pikeys whilst he's tanned and blond) so must brave the dangerous desert to find the answers.

Kalaa decides to tag along (well, it's either that or sit on her own waiting for the dirty monkeys to turn up) and before long the stumble across a tribe sacrificing a nubile, pointy headed blonde on a bonfire.

Yor kills them all and rescues the lady who introduces herself as Roa (Gul), owner of a pound shop pendant not dissimilar to Yor's (the main character, not yours obviously. Unless you actually own one when it may well do).

"Do the monkey with me!"

Kala, unhappy with another female joining the group decides to kill her love rival but her plan is interrupted when a rather wet Ukraan turns up looking for revenge.

A fight ensues (again) but Roa is struck down before Yor can save her.

Which is good news for Kalaa.

"Hallo I'm superfluous, come sleep in mah bed".

Our terrific trio tut and shrug shoulders before continuing their journey into the desert and before long come across some folk being attacked by what looks like a large chicken with an umbrella stuck to its back.

Not having been involved in a fight for around ten minutes Yor kills the beast and gets invited to another party where yet another bikini clad lady fawns over him and wiggles her ample hips.

Understandably Kalaa is really pissed off at the fact that every woman on the planet wants a piece of Yor's prime ass but before she can attempt to kill this one the tribal chief arrives with information about Yor's origins.

It seems that every so often blond 'gods' wearing big medallions come to visit the villagers in flying boxes from a mysterious island hidden by a spooky dark fog.

Yor is convinced that the island holds the key to his identity so he steals a fishing boat to continue his quest, leaving the friendly visitors to be wiped out by the aforementioned flying boxes.

"Thanks for the pearl necklace Yor!"

With Pag and Kalaa as his loyal crew, Yor quickly makes his way to the island only to lose control of the boat when a violent storm whips up from nowhere. Yor is tossed overboard and washed up on a beach where he is almost immediately zapped by a guy in a leather jumpsuit and a gas mask.

Kinky.

Don't fret tho', Kalaa and Pag are safe too. They've been cast ashore further up the beach where they're accosted by a small group of cave dwelling tramps.

"You'll just feel a tiny prick...."

Yor meanwhile has been grabbed by the Overlord (sounds painful) as is looking on in mild apathy as the movies plot is explained to him.

It turns out that the film is set on a future Earth devastated by nuclear war where the majority of survivors have regressed to little more than savages.

A small group of scientists however tried to hold back the oncoming violent times by using space age technology and appointing an absolute leader (the aforementioned Overlord - the plywood like Steiner) who (and with a name like that you can't be too surprised) built an army of gimp suited androids and kick out anyone who disagreed with him.

Yor's parents were among those yellow bellied cowards that ran away, preferring to take their chances with the papier mache dinosaurs on the mainland, which was a bad idea seeing as they were almost instantly eaten leaving our hero an orphan.

Before they died however they gave baby Yor a present, the big gold medallion he wears which in reality is a high tech recording device (what for I don't know, why they never left him a note of how to work it, ditto).

Laughing (looking and possibly smelling) like an off season seaside town crossdresser on crack, Overlord announces that he has plans for Yor.....

"Juliet Bravo!"

Kalaa and Pag meanwhile are swapping niceties with the resistance movement who have told then much the same story, but adding the (fairly important) bit about Overlord planning to kill everyone else on the planet within the next hour or so.

They decide to attack Overlord's complex.

Whilst all this is going on. Overlord and his foxy assistant Ena (André) have strapped Yor to a dinning table and started flashing really hot disco lights at him in an attempt to steal his DNA which, when mixed with Kalaa's will become the genetic building blocks for Overlords new android army.

Just as it appears that Yor can't possibly sweat any more the stinky tramps burst in and free our hero as a battle of epic proportions ensues.

"Are you looking at my bra?"

One particularly stinking tramp manages to reach Overlords control centre and de-active his leathery android hordes whilst Yor plants a bomb inside the bases nuclear reactor.

With only minutes to spare before detonation Yor stabs overlord with a huge barbers poll and hounds the heroic rebel band into a conveniently parked spaceship, escaping the island with seconds to spare as it explodes no doubt showering a still recovering planet and population in all manner of dangerous radiation.

As our merry band fly off to an uncertain future, spooky voice over guy tells us of how Yor will "use his new found knowledge of mankind's past to protect the future".

"Yor the one that I want".

Originally made as a three hour SciFi epic for Italian Teevee, Antonio (I got to say I directed Andy Warhol's Dracula and Frankenstein but only for tax purposes) Margheriti’s fantasy classic is better known to fans of the fantastic in it's truncated movie form.

Even losing almost two hours of it's original running time the films sheer awfulness shines thru'. From it's ludicrous premise by way of the abysmal acting via trite dialogue, a distinct lack of a workable script and overall general shoddiness it's still top quality entertainment.

Look at Maurizio and Guido De Angelis's score, re-used ad infinitum in such blockbusters as 2019: After the Fall of New York and Raiders of Atlantis, and Lightblast) and the clever use of costumes left over from that other Corinne Clery SciFi masterwork The Humanoid (tho' it's more likely that she came free with the suits) not forgetting the star turn by the ultimate macho man that is Mr. Reb Brown.

Brown: Tight, athletic buttocks.

From his early work alongside soon to be Starbuck Dirk Benedict in the 1973 shocker Ssssss to his appearances as Captain America in two ill advised 1979 Teevee movies you can always count on Brown's frankly terrifyingly muscled arse to take your attentions away from any mistakes on screen, he's ably (and amply) supported by Euro art/sleaze star Corinne Clery doing her best as the vacant eyed bubble permed heroine with the hots for Yor and Italian 'B' stalwart (and owner of the droopiest man breasts ever) Luciano Pigozzi (star of such top quality hits as Alien from the Deep and Double Target) brings a Wilfrid Bramble like quality (and smell probably) to his role as uncle Pag.

Funnier than Margheriti's Cannibal Apocalypse and with better special effects and a fluid style of its own that features nods to the 60's Batman series with it's high angle camera work, good old over choreographed 'slow fighting' and an endearing kind of thrift shop feel that makes it a pain free enjoyable 90 minutes of cheesy entertainment if nothing else. Yor may make absolutely no sense at all but at least it's not too painful to watch.

Especially if like me you enjoy tight buttocks.

As a strange but true aside I'd just like to add that about five years ago I came across a Dutch version of Yor in a local charity shop for a pound and eagerly snatched it up (what can I say? I liked the cover illustration). Rushing home to see how it held up dubbed I was surprised to find that someone had recorded over the last ten minutes with what looked like home video footage of a deserted public pool where a scantily clad, blindfolded woman sat strapped into a chair.

After viewing this strange (yet somewhat disturbing) scene for a few minutes a man appeared from stage left wearing nothing but a clown mask and holding a kitchen knife. He proceeded to pinch the womans nipples and play with her hair for a few minutes before moving slowly toward her....then the screen cut to static.

I've always wondered if someone had accidentally recorded one of their home sex tapes at the end or if I'd stumbled across a scary snuff film, the killer desperate to recover the tape before his identity could be found.....

If you know (or are the person) that made this then feel free to get in touch.

Unless you are a mad mentalist murder obviously.

fish fang grrrrrrr!

What can I say?

The box art looked exciting plus it's from some of the folk that made Sharktopus so sue me.

And at least there'll be no footage of 14 year old abducted girls getting violated in this one.

Which is a shame really.

Dinoshark (2010).
Dir: Kevin O'Neill (not the one that drew Nemesis The Warlock).
Cast: Eric Balfour, Iva Hasperger (me too), Aarón Díaz, Dan Golden, Christina Nicole, Humberto Busto and Lord Roger of Corman.

"Welcome to the Endangered Species list, bastard!"

Our story begins off the coast of Alaska (or at the very least a lovely painting of it), where solo yachtsman Sevrin Seas (as himself) has managed to bump his boat into a particularly sharp bit of CGI iceberg.

Deciding to dive into the icy waters to check the hull for scratches it's not long before our salty pal is being stalked by something in the deep blue sea.

And no, it's not called 'Josh'.

Suddenly and without warning (apart from a whooshing sound) poor Mr. Seas (and his handy GPS) is swallowed whole by what looks like a huge, grey computer generated turd with fins.

And  a bad case of all over genital warts.

"Shark in mah mooth!"

Meanwhile in Mexico (just across the street from where they shot Sharktopus) the horse-faced and bullet nippled everyman Trace McGraw (Balfour from 24 and the Texas Chainsaw remake) having recently returned home from sailor school, as decided to put his training to work by running a tourist cruise throughout the holiday season in a kinda Carry on Cruising way.

Sun, sand, sexy senoritas and various STD's beckon.


Well it would be if the harbour patrol would let him live on his boat.

A sexy senorita (sans AIDS) yesterday.

Heading to his pal Jeremy's pub, The Salty Seaman, to drown his sorrows, a long (well longer than usual) faced Trace soon gets chatting the blonde bombshell, scientist and girls water polo coach, Carol Brubaker (Hasperger from the Billy Zane classic Vlad) who just happens to be a buddy of his bestest pal Rita (the mightily moustached and spud faced Nicole).

After a few drinks and a wee bit of character development, Rita makes her farewells and heads off to the beach for a swim leaving Trace and Carol to stare at each other giggling whilst trying to figure out who has the bigger chin.

Adrien Brody: the mooth shite-in years.

Making her excuses to leave (and no she doesn't just say "I have my women's period" and walk away) our brainy beauty heads of to meet hotelier and part-time dirty perv Mike (Bad Girls from Mars star Golden) who talks her into having her huge thighed female volleyball team hold an exhibition game in a canal that leads to open sea.

For no other reason it seems than to make for an exciting climax.

Whilst all this chat is highly commendable (and unusual) for this kind of movie, what we really want is gratuitous scenes of Frank Dinoshark chowing down on some olive skinned beauty.

Well we get half of our wish granted when poor Rita becomes the main course in our prehistoric chums Latino lunch.

Entrails on mah beach!

Worried (kinda) by their friends non appearance at dinner time, Trace and co. head out to look for her, finding instead our titanic toothed terror chomping away on a couple of non speaking extras dressed as rejects from Baywatch Nights.

What the fuck is this giant scaly beast? enquires Trent with the worried look of a slightly constipated beagle.

Luckily for us (and the plot) as well as everything else, Carol is an expert on badly rendered prehistoric shark type things and heads over to see her old friend, eminent marine biologist Dr. Frank Reeves (Corman himself looking as sexy as ever) to see if he has any idea how to make it die.

Call me stupid but it doesn't matter how old and grizzled it is cos at the end of the day it's only a big fish?

Why would she need to ask how to kill it?

I mean it's not like it's lead lined or made of gold.....surely bullets, bombs or a big net would do?

"Come my children...suck the movie milk from my man tits!"

Anyway, Trace and Carol decide it'd be wise to hunt down and kill poor Dinoshark before he has a chance to eat any more of the admittedly small number of tourists there for the resorts annual bring and buy sale.

So will our dynamic chinned duo manage to kill this titan of terror before the budget runs out?

Or will the swim team get eaten whole?

Well, what do you think?

"Laugh noooooooooo!"

Another day, another big shark and another SyFy original movie produced by Sir Roger of Corman on a break from counting his money, directed by the man that gave you Dinocroc (and did the effects on the Feast trilogy) and starring the pretty one from the TCM remake.

What's not to love?

Apart from the acting, visual effects and shoddy production values obviously.

Filmed in exactly the same locations - and with exactly the same script - as Sharktopus you kinda know what you're getting yourself into even before you've slapped a fiver down for this beauty in your local Morrisons and if you don't then it's no ones fault but your own.

And frankly you should be ashamed of yourself.

Rum, sodomy and the lash.

I mean come on, you know the CGI beast is going to look like a slightly spastic childs bath toy, that the performances will be pitch at comatose level and that the lead actress has been hired on breast size rather than talent but who the hell cares cos sometimes after a hard days toil you just want to see busty babes and comedy shirted men get eaten by monsters.

Admit it, you know it's true.

It's just a pity that Eric Roberts was busy.

warts of the world.

Talking of which...

Porno Holocaust (AKA Insel der Zombies, Orgasmo Nero II 1981)
Dir: Joe D'amato.
Cast: George Eastman, Mark Shannon, Dirce Funari, Annj Goren and Lucia Ramirez.

Women! We must be crazy! You know what they say about women! They bring bad luck.

It's worse than that, Jacques. They're scientists. Can you imagine what kind of monsters they are?

Photoshop holocaust more like.

Warty scrotumed sea fairing sex god Captain O'Day (Mark Shannon) has been hired by the Dominican government to ferry a team of scientists (including mustachioed and man breasted D'Amato regular Eastman) to a remote tropical island that once served as a nuclear test site in the 1950's.

It seems that in the intervening years strange stories have surfaced regarding bizarre mutations that now live on the island and a scientific team led by Dr. Lemoine (Eastman) the physicist behind the original tests has been sent to investigate.

As is the way in porn/horror hybrids, the Lemoine's team consists of three fairly sexy (in a kinda kebab shop queue way), late 70's breasted nympho's and a dispensable old bloke with bad hair (professor Keller - no idea who plays him as he's not listed on the credits...yup his performance is that good).

Anyway, the rest of the group consist of granite faced Annie (Ramirez), who scarily fancies the captain, leathery lesbian Countess Dorcin (Goren) and Simone (Funari), Professor Keller's Sheena Easton alike wife and plaything of the Countess.

Saucy.

What was this film called again?

Before setting off to the island tho' there's just enough time for some nasty shagging.

Annie and O'Day head off into the countryside for some warty fun whilst the Countess pays a pair of local inbreds for an impromptu biology class (and I really do mean local....D'Amato allegedly payed two men he met in the street $25 to have sex with Goren on film).

This turns out to be the films most disturbing scene as the tombstone toothed twosomes attempts to stay aroused are thwarted by the omnipresent camera crew as Goren stares distastefully into the distance obviously annoyed that her career has come to shagging strangers in back alleys.

At this point I suggest a cold shower before continuing.

"Touch my warty scrotum....yesch!"

After all this nasty shagging everyone decides that it'd be a good idea to get to the island and start work (oh and start the films plot running good and proper) but all hope of this is dashed when, once again the kinky Countess and saucy Simone decide it'd be more interesting to have sex than indulge in scientific research.

Interesting to them perhaps but not this viewer unfortunately.

Not wanting to be left out, the Captain and Annie also rush off into the trees to find a secluded spot for a wee game of hide the warty wand, giving us a change to gaze in awe at Shannon's fantastically scary cum face in glorious wide screen.

He's thinking of your mum...

Deciding to make this section of shagging at least a wee bit different to what's gone before Simone, after her luscious lesbo licking session, returns to the boat to offer her boring hubbie a swift hand shandy.

Well would you say no?

After a few minutes in the company of mother fist and her five beautiful daughters and being a cleanliness obsessed kinda guy, Professor Keller wanders off to give himself a good scrub at the waters edge (how romantic).

However just as he's working on those hard to reach stains a freakily deformed, rag wrapped tramp (sorry...zombie) arrives and murders him.

Yay! finally someone died!

Not much you can say to that is there?

Hearing a muffled cry, Simone pops out of her tent (and her nightie) looking for her husband, failing to notice the terrifying tramp coming up from behind (ooeerr) before it's too late.

Forcing the terrified (well, I say terrified but to be honest she looks bored) Simone to her knees the tramp begins to choke her to death with his comedy rubber zombie cock.

"Zombie cock in mah mooth!"

Realizing that no-one has seen or heard anything from Keller or Simone for a couple of hours, Captain Cock-Rot, Lemoine (relax girls, Eastman stays fully clothed) and the Countess (who at this point looks like she's lost the will to live) decide to mount a search party (not literally but with this movie it wouldn't surprise me).

no sooner have they left the relative safety of base camp when they come across (again, not literally) Keller face down in a pool with his penis out and a naked and spunk encrusted (not to mention very dead) Simone.

Our heroic Captain comes to the conclusion that there must be another person on the island with them....either that or a pissed off lobster with a hard on.

Mark Shannon impressed the rest of the cast
by using his largest genital wart as a stool between scenes.

Whilst all this chat is going on (and trust me, it's a relief from all the ugly sex) our zombie pal has decided that the sexy shenanigans have gone on for far too long and has decided to kill off the remaining (but more importantly unattractive) cast members as quickly as possible.

That's Mr. Eastman screwed then.

When he finally catches up with Annie (who stumbles on a twig and bruises her ankle whilst trying to escape poor lamb) he bonks her on the head, binds her hands and carries her off to his lair.

Why? you may ask. It's not like he can choose to be picky about who he shags to death, seeing as he's dressed in rags with a face like a half chewed caramel, so they're must be another reason.

Plot development in a Joe D'Amato movie? Scary or what?

Here come the Belgians!

Leaving her lying against his favourite rock Mr. Zombie wanders off to kill an investigative reporter also on the island ( D'Amato himself) leaving Annie enough time to have a nosy around his groovy bachelor pad and find an old rucksack that will no doubt contain information about the zombie.

A rucksack like the one featured in the movie.

After much searching Annie finally finds the rucksack (it was just behind the bins next to the skull pile) and excitedly empties the contents onto the dusty cave floor.

Amongst the pile of tatty woman's clothes and various baby items Annie discovers a battered old diary with 'this book belongs to Antoine Demadura - do not read' scrawled on the inside cover.

Annie settles down ready to get the gossip.

Eastman: different film, same sweaty manbreasts.

Meanwhile back at the beach, Captain O'Day is slightly upset by the fact that not only has his entire crew been murdered and his squeeze has disappeared but his wee boat has gone missing too.

Stomping about manfully and splitting coconuts he has no alternative but to have sex with the Countess to cheer himself up.

Annie on the other hand hasn't had sex for at least twenty minutes as she's far too busy reading how poor local farmer Demadura, his wife and ickle baby had been accidentally left on the island prior to the nuclear tests.

The death of his wife and child (coupled with the radiation obviously) mutated and regressed the poor fella to a point where only his most basic animal desires survived. Annie has been spared the fate of her colleagues tho' because in a strange quirk of fate only found in movies such as this, she bares an uncanny resemblance to Demadura's dead wife. As if wishing to push this point even further (obviously for those members of the audience who find the lead actress looking at a photo of herself in a different outfit whilst exclaiming "Oooh...I look like his dead wife!" too dificult to understand) Demandura turns up wife his scabby head cleaned, the tufts of hair in his ears combed and clutching a bunch of flowers for Annie.

Awwww....what a sweetie!

Gently kissing his new love goodbye (well more like dribbles on her if I'm honest) he leaves the cave to look for the Countess. Is he going to invite her back to the cave too maybe to explain that the entire killing spree was a misunderstanding?

No, when he finds her Demadura knocks her unconscious and proceeds to shag her to death.

Oh well. It was nice whilst it lasted.

The binmen strike again....

The Captain, by now the only survivor and obviously gagging for 'the sex', reckons it's about time he went to search for Annie. Within a matter of minutes he's found Demadura's cave, untied her hands and dragged her off to the reporters boat for a quick getaway and a good grope.

Headfuck.

Just as our heroes approach the shoreline Demadura pops out of the undergrowth and makes a move toward Annie. O'Day shoots him with his handy speargun, only to see Demadura pluck the projectile from his body and move menacingly towards the captain, his cock swaying in the sea breeze.


Just as he lunges in for the kill Annie (remembering that she's still in the movie) calls out "No, Demadura! No!" whilst looking on in an uninterested manner causing his arm to fall off (no, really).

Howling with pain (or wind) as the memories of his previous life come flooding back to him Demadura collapses onto the golden sands and dies.

Annie and the Captain run hand in hand to the boat, cast off from shore and have a big shag to celebrate.

Joe D'Amato's companion piece to his sexy horror opus, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, Porno Holocaust is more sex film than shocker, discarding the haunting voodoo menace of that movie for an atomic monster with a huge cock and a thing for colourful head scarves.

With it's uniformly ugly cast and brightly lit, almost clinical scenes of penetration and overgrown 70's bush the true horror comes not from the idea of being shagged to death by a large blue mutant but from the look on the cast members faces as the are forced to go thru the motions, their faces contorted and twisted in horrific fake 'cum faces' just to earn a dollar.

It's enough to put you off sex (especially with zombies) for life and after almost two hours of Mark Shannon's aforementioned genital warts I'd challenge you to ever eat a bramble again.

Those minor niggles aside it does feature the only full screen death by forced zombie blow job I can think of on film so that must count for something I guess.

Like shagging a bin or eating out of a trans gendered dwarf (or is that the other way round?) Porno Holocaust is something you must experience once before you die.