In 1981 On-Line Systems released the very first commercially available pornographic computer game, Softporn. A fantasy text adventure game for adults, where the player had to seduce three women, while avoiding hazards, like being killed by a nightclub bouncer. With text commands as odd and creepy as BUY WHISKEY, WEAR CONDOM and SCREW HOOKER, the game was about as erotic as being slapped in the face with a wet fish.

They went full steam ahead marketing the game, with the now infamous hot tub advertising photo, which was taken in the Williamses' own backyard. The photo even featured employees of On-Line Systems, with Roberta herself appearing in it, on the far right. The hot tub ad first ran in the September 1981 issue of Softalk, an Apple II enthusiast magazine, and instantly became controversial, among early computer hobbyists and readers of the magazine.

Blaxploitation sci-fi! Now that's a genre you don't hear of often. Starring Joe Morton, better known for his role as Miles Dyson in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgement Day. He plays "the brother", who's an escaped alien slave hiding out in Harlem, after his ship crash lands. Directed by independent cult film director John Sayles, he made the movie as an obvious and at times overworked metaphor for the difficulties of being an immigrant in America.

Unable to speak "the brother" makes his way through New York and the movie in a series of situational vignettes, that often have a comedic nod towards the silent film era. It's clever and inventive, at times unstructured and confusing. Which adds to the feeling of alienation, and being a stranger in a strange land that Sayles is attempting to convey. The gentle comedy that Morton's character brings to the screen is juxtaposed against scenes of racial tension, drug abuse, poverty and urban decay. His outstanding performance as the innocent and charming alien carries the film. He's Chaplin's little tramp, who you root for and warm to.

Beautifully handled by Sayles, The Brother From Another Planet is a quirky and charming movie that stays with you long after you've seen it. Often underrated and overlooked, it's low-budget independent film-making at its leftfield best. And one of my personal introductions to independent cinema as a teenager. Over 30 years on from first seeing it, it still sits as one of my favourite (now) cult films of all time. I highly recommend that people seek it out and give it a watch.

What started out as the obscure b-movie Shantytown Honeymoon was taken by producer/director Fred Olen Ray, and spliced with new footage of famed b-movie actor John Carradine as the Judge of Hell, who narrates the story. A group of jewel thieves on the run, wander into a backwoods farm, hoping to hide out for the time being. However, when the farmer returns home only to find the thieves taking over the house, he hatches a deadly plan.The film was re-released with the 5 minutes of Carradine footage, destined still to be an obscure b-movie. Released under the various titles of Honey Britches, Moonshiner's Woman, Hillbilly Hooker, Little Whorehouse on the Prairie, and finally Demented Death Farm Massarce. It still made no impact, until 1986 when Olen Ray sold the film to Troma Entertainment, and they released it on VHS as part of their back catalog of schlock horror movies.

A German / Canadian / French / Italian co-production, directed by Denis Héroux. Loosely based on the notorious Richard Speck murders, which is transferred inexplicable from America to Northern Ireland, during the Troubles. This is the grim tale of a disturbed Vietnam vet returning home via Belfast, who invades a house shared by eight nurses and proceeds to terrorize and murder them. This is the closest telling of the Speck story. Others that were likely inspired by it I have mentioned before are the controversial Japanese flick Violated Angels, and possibly to some extent the infamous Canadian cult slasher Black Christmas. The film, which has the potential to be a cult classic, is somewhat ruined by the bad dubbing. For some reason all the actors have been dubbed over with painful foreign accented voice actors. Rather than having Irish, British or American accents. Or it did on the version I watched.

In essence a cheap hack-and-slash reworking of Peter Bogdanovich's 1968 cult classic Targets. Two police detectives try to catch a serial killer who is stalking a rural California drive-in theater, randomly killing people with a sword. Co-written by George "Buck" Flower, who has appeared in films as diverse as Back To the Future II, Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS and many of John Carpenter's productions. The movie has all the right elements for a cult slasher b-movie, and even harks back to schlock horror marketing tactics of the like of William Castle. With it's viewer discretion WARNING!!!, and claim to have been "filmed entirely in bloodcurdling Gore-Color." It's a movie that was designed to be seen in a drive-in cinema, and loses something on the small screen. With it's tired old "he's coming for you" twist ending, designed to put the willies up drive-in audiences.

In the 1940s the True Comics series of comic books presented educational information for kids in a pictorial format. As a backlash against racism, and in particular the racial superiority propaganda of the Nazis in WWII, humanist and publisher George J. Hecht produced a piece called There Are No Master Races! in issue #39 of the series, published in Sept-Oct 1944. Using references from the Bible, alongside both historical and scientific understanding he presented a strong anti-racist piece of propaganda to counter the Nazi claims. The latter panels directly mentioning the Japanese, Italians and Germans.

A quack doctor medical device that appeared in the late 1800s, these painful looking instruments made all kinds of claims for their curative properties. Apparently sticking a large rubber dildo up your rear-end could cure anything from constipation, piles, and prostate prostate trouble, to nervousness, improve acne and aid restful sleep. Seriously! You'd think the last thing you'd have is a restful sleep after someone had shoved one of those bad boys up your bum. 

These things were marketed right into the late 1930s. Then in 1938, a new Federal Law in the United States covered such quack devices, and they became outlawed. 

Vintage ads for rectal dilators. At least the "Recto Rotor" a particularly painful looking instrument of torture, has lube vents.

"Tentacles. It slept until man disturbed it. Then it woke, with a fury no man could control. Rising from the ocean floor, to bring destruction and death." Tentacles, or Tentacoli was an American/Italian co-production. A horror movie attempting shamelessly to cash-in on the success of Jaws.

Ocean Beach, a seaside tourist resort, has come under attack by an unknown creature, which captures and devours human swimmers and boaters, picking the skeletons clean of flesh and even extracting the bone marrow. The scientists have no idea which animal could do such things. However an investigative newspaper journalist (played by John Huston) begins to suspect that the company which builds a tunnel beneath the bay might have poisoned the environment and caused an octopus to mutate to giant dimensions. 

As well as the late great John Huston in the lead role, the movie had an all-star supporting cast, which included Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins and Henry Fonda.

With terrible tag-lines like "It's Turning the Beach ... Into a Buffet!" The horror of Tentacles is how it got made, and how the hell they got the stellar cast to star in it. A hysterically bad creature feature, with all the cheesy acting and special effects you have expected from a 50s b-movie, except inexplicably made in the late 70s. An utter car crash of a movie that you'll either laugh yourself silly watching, or sit in abject boredom, wondering whether to have seafood for dinner tomorrow. 

Back in the primitive days of video gaming, the best most homes could hope for was a TV console with a series of generic Pong style paddle and ball based games. The Magnavox Odyssey was the world's first commercial home video game console. It was first demonstrated in April 1972. 

Paris, Texas is a beautifully slow paced and delicately handled masterpiece from German film-maker Wim Wenders. Starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, and Nastassja Kinski, it's the story about love, loss, redemption and a journey of self discovery. As amnesiac Stanton wanders out of the desert after being missing for 4 years, to rebuild his life, and reconnect with his past.

Many people eulogise about about Paris, Texas. There is review after review out there describing it as one of the greatest films ever. I wouldn't put it up there as one of my personal top films ever, but I do appreciate its beauty as a cinematic work of art. The cinematography by Robby Müller, is stunning. Using the desolation of the countryside, small towns and the endless roads, as an externalised metaphor for Stanton's character. Causing the scenery to become as much as a character in the movie as the actors wandering through it. The opening scene is one of my personal favourite openings to any movie.

However, Paris, Texas is an American movie. and in many ways, mainly due to the cinematography, is a quintessential slice of Americana apple pie. Ordered from a diner on a desolate dusty road somewhere between Houston and L.A. Not to everyone's tastes, Paris, Texas is undoubtedly a classic that Wenders is likely most widely known for. Though of his English language movies of that period, I prefer Until The End Of The World (1991). But I'll save that for another post.

Life As A Blackman: The Game (1999): Apparently game designer Chuck Sawyer wanted to express through this game his own personal experiences as someone from a minority group, trying to make their way through corporate America. So what do we have? An insight into what it's like to young and black in America? Not quite, it's more a game littered with black conservative Christian stereotypes of African-American culture. Like a Crosby Show reworking of Boyz N The Hood of board games. In the game players must make choices between good and evil, or between the church and a life of crime. 

Black & Whites (1970): You'd think a game first published in the respected journal Psychology Today in March 1970, would have delivered a carefully considered game with a social conscience. What they actually delivered wasn't a game that helped to create awareness of the divide between blacks and whites, but inadvertently between the haves and have nots, irrespective of race. As blacks are portrayed as stereotypically poor and whites as wealthy, with stock dividends and wads of cash.