After the failure to get his Dune project to the screen, and the minor blip that was Tusk in 1980, Alexandro Jodorowsky brought us Santa Sangre in 1989. Back to the form that viewers witnessed in the surreal classics El Topo (1970) and Holy Mountain (1973), the film has become a cult classic of surreal avant-garde horror cinema.

Santa Sangre (Holy Blood) was an Italian-Mexican production, co-written (other writers being Claudio Argento and Roberto Leoni) and directed by Jodorowsky. A film that is crammed full of allegorical imagery, it's a wild ride through the mind of a young man trapped in a mental hospital. As we travel through flash-backs and flash-forwards, into a world of bizarre circus, and a fanatical religious cult known as Santa Sangre.

Along with his earlier works, the film is considered to be one of Jodorowsky's greatest works. A trippy hallucinatory nightmare through the mind of one of the greatest cult film directors of all time. A true piece of psychological horror, that mixes uncomfortable images, with dark humour, violence and sexuality.

The tag-line to Santa Sangre was "Forget Everything You Have Seen". And in many ways that line still holds true. As the film stands-up to this day, as a surreal masterpiece, unrivalled by films that have attempted to follow in its footsteps. It's such a shame that Jodorowsky never got to make his version of Dune. Which could well be one of the greatest movies never made. Despite the fact that much of the ideas and images from it have found there way into many sci-fi and horror films since.

Most of us have had the misfortune to have the missionaries from the Mormon church turn up on our doorstep. Selling their particular brand of pseudo-Christian cultism. Figures of ridicule wherever they go, see in this banned animation how truly fruit-loop, racist and dangerous they really are. Apparently this animation was made by an ex-Mormon, for the 1982 documentary exposing the truth behind the church, called The God Makers.

Basket Case is a 1982 American horror comedy film written and directed by cult film-maker Frank Henenlotter. Henenlotter, who also made 2 sequels to Basket Case as well as the cult classics Brain Damage (1988) and Frankenhooker (1990), is quoted as saying,  "I never felt that I made ‘horror films’", he has said. "I always felt that I made exploitation films. Exploitation films have an attitude more than anything – an attitude that you don’t find with mainstream Hollywood productions. They’re a little ruder, a little raunchier, they deal with material people don’t usually touch on, whether it’s sex or drugs or rock and roll."


Basket Case is a classic piece of 80s schlock cinema, about Duane who arrives in New York City carrying a basket with him wherever he goes. The basket contains his deformed twin, who he was surgically separated from. Duane's twin Belial, wants to seek revenge on the surgeon who split them at an early age, against their will. Belial goes on an unstoppable murderous rampage, until Duane tries to stop his evil twin, for the murder and attempted rape of a nurse he befriends.

Basket Case was Henenlotter's first feature film, and was shot on grainy 16mm, for a budget of only $35,000. Creating a dark and disturbing atmosphere, that recreates the seedy side of 80s New York around Times Square and 42nd Street. The film became an instant cult classic, and spent a number of years on the midnight movie circuit. It didn't make the Video Nasty list on the UK, but was singled out among others as a film that many video stores refused to stock. 

Chuck's animated self seemed to spend a lot of time in what can only be described as classic 80s, homoerotic attire. (Check out that lovely side knotted scarf.) With tight white vests, or simply topless in tight pants. Being produced by Norris himself, I'm sure he missed the obvious in retrospect campness of the whole animated adventure that he entered into.

The rest of his crew, the "Karate Kommandos", would fight alongside Chuck against the evils of VULTURE, and their leader Claw. The Kommandos included brother and sister Reed and Pepper, Kimo a Samurai warrior, Tabe a sumo wrestler, and "Too Much" who was Chuck Norris's ward. (A bit of Batman and Robin about that.) In the opening credits, Chuck's name is mentioned 9 times, with actual footage of Chuck book-ending each episode. Ending with a moral lesson delivered by the great man himself.

Good old Chuck is the butt of many a joke on the Internet, and has been mentioned a few times on Weird Retro. From the 1983 video game Chuck Norris Superkicks, and his Kickin' Action Jeans. But the most popula Chuck Norris related Captain's blog posts have been the infamous Japanese Chuck Norris Action Sex Doll, from back in November 2014. And its sequel, the Chuck Norris Transgendered Action Sex Doll, from the beginning of April 2015. 

How to make a bad b-movie creature feature in the 80s. Start making a movie, fall out over its production. Get someone else to make an entirely different movie, with a different cast. Then splice the two movies together, and tah dah... You have 1986's Spookies.

Spookies started life as a movie called Twisted Souls, back in 1984. Then in post-production the movie ground to a halt, due to disputes with the financial backers. In 1985 the financiers hired another directer to film the extra footage,  which was then edited into the famously confusing (badly edited) over-the-top creature feature.  The movie is chock full of costumed and animatronic creatures. Check out the trailer below, and you'll see what I mean. One favourite creature is the farting muckmen, that have more than a passing resemblance to Kevin Smith's Golgothan shit demon from Dogma (1999).

Spookies is a bit of a forgotten cult classic, of that particularly mid-80s horror style of gory horror spliced with goofy humour. 

Others of the period that spring to mind are the all time classics of the genre, Evil Dead 2 (1987), as well as the earlier Italian horror Demons from 1985, directed by Lamberto Bava. Others that I'd put into this category would be 1988's Night Of The Demons and Street Trash from 1987. But those are just a few, among the many horror movies of the period that were self-referential and aware of their own silliness at times. Which made them all the better.

Don't stop believing that they did actually make a rock band Journey video arcade game in 1983. Not only that, there was even a home video gaming version of it. Both were failures (the home version bombed big time, and the arcade version less so), but hey, that's now why they are being blogged about on Weird Retro. 

The game was produced by Bally Midway,  following the success of the bands albums Escape (1981) and Frontiers (1983). The release of the arcade game was originally intended to run alongside the band's nationwide tour after the release of the Frontiers album. A big deal was made of the fact the game featured characters made of digitized photographs of the members of the band at the time of release: Steve Perry, Neal Schon, Steve Smith, Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory.

The object of the game was to reunite the band with their instruments, all the while listening the band's song  "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)". Which was played on a loop, via a cassette player hidden inside the arcade cabinet. Each instrument is located on a different planet, and the musician must first reach the instrument, then make it back to the band's ship without running into an obstacle. Many of these mini games were weak rip-off versions of popular arcade games of the period. Once all of the instruments have been collected, the band performs a concert (see right) while the player controls, a bouncer whose job is to prevent fans from rushing the stage. Eventually a fan gets past and the crowd steals the band's instruments. Play starts again on a harder level. The game continues until the player has lost all of his or her lives.

An utterly bemusing and confusing review of the Journey arcade game from its TV début in 1983.

Women are not film-makers you'd usually associate with the slasher movie genre. But The Slumber Party Massacre was written by Rita Mae Brown, and directed by Amy Holden Jones. The movie was originally written as and intended to be a parody of the rising popularity of the genre, in the late 70s and early 80s. However it was made as a straight genre piece, and as such straddles a black comedy line. With some of the original humour still shining through, as well as the unintended humour of clunky script and bad b-movie acting.

The movie (being an intended parody) follows the slasher genre formula. High school girls, played by 20-somethings, with plenty of shower scene nudity. (At only 8 minutes in!) An escaped serial killer with a love of power tools. Except, unlike most slasher movies, we know who the killer is and what he looks like in this movie. But you do get a series of set-piece deaths, that sway wildly between gore spectacles and over-the-top hilarity. It's cheap, it's tacky, and it has "massacre" in the title. Perfect slasher stuff!

Part from its infamy as one of the must see movies of the slasher genre of the period, for any die-hard fans, The Slumber Party Massacre has little more going for it. Coming out of Roger Corman's stable of New World Pictures, which gave many of Hollywood's top film-makers their first break. Amy Jones would go on to write the screenplays for Mystic Pizza (1988), and was a writer on the Beethoven series of movies. She is said to have given up an editing job of E.T. to direct The Slumber Party Massacre.

Italian horror from director Andrea Bianchi, who also directed the 1981 horror Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, among many other Italian horrors. It tells the story of a movie director who hires a medium to hold a seance as part of a movie he's making. Unbeknownst to the cast and crew the medium unleashes the evil spirit of Jack the Ripper, who takes possession of one of the cast. Who then starts going on a gory killing spree.

Produced by Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci, the movie is padded out with kill scenes from Fulci's own past and future movies, including A Cat In The Brain, which was made around the same time as Massacre. This is low-budget schlock Italian horror at its border-line best/worst. Actually, it may be best to just go watch A Cat In The Brain, and see the same kill scenes wrapped in a better movie. But then again for obscure cult Italian horror, why not stick with the "source" material. Purely based on this one coming out first out of the two movies. Though it is likely that footage used was filmed for the latter movie.

One of the most unusual and rarest games produced for the Atari 2600, in 1983, was Space invaders inspired Pepsi Invaders or otherwise known as Coke Wins! Coca-Cola commissioned Atari to create the game, which was essentially a direct redesign of the Space Invaders ROM. Instead of aliens coming down the screen, they had the word PEPSI. 

Only 125 cartridges were produced, which were packaged unlabelled in plain white disposable packaging, and handed out to delegates at a Coca-Cola convention in Atlanta, along with a Atari 2600 console. When original copies do come up for sale, they can fetch up to $2000 at auction.

The game is thought to be the rarest and most collectible games, in gaming history.

One of last month's Cult Film Friday selections wasDer Todesking by German director Jörg Buttgereit. But the director is best known for his earlier controversial film NEKRomantik, which found itself on banned lists around the world. In Britain it made its way onto the infamous Video Nasties list of the 1980s, and wasn't released uncut until 2014.

The film tells the story of a street cleaner, who works for a company that clears up dead bodies found in public. As part of his work he collects the corpse of a dead gardener, killed in a shooting accident and takes it home for his girlfriend. They are both necrophiliacs, and engage in all kinds of depraved acts with the human remains that litter the house. Eventually his girlfriend leaves him, to start a romantic relationship with the corpse. Despondent the man, tries to get over his loss by seeking out a prostitute, who he murders in a cemetery and has sex with the corpse. Discovered laying with the corpse by an old man, he cuts the man's head off with a shovel.

NEKRomantik is a nasty film. The subject matter is disturbing and it is presented in the most disgusting way possible. And that's the point. This is a horror film with arthouse pretensions. Buttgereit is purposely pushing the boundaries of shock film-making. There are more disturbing films, more gory films, more disgusting films. But there aren't many films that have been made that are genuinely something you can simply describe as being "nasty".