Part documentary, part early form of mockumentary, I Am Curious (Yellow) was part of the emerging new wave of Swedish cinema in the late 1960s. Originally conceived as a 3 and a half-hour epic, the film was split into two companion films named Yellow and Blue, after the colours of the Swedish flag.

The film tells the story of Lena, as she goes on a journey of self discovery, followed by a film crew. With the director Sjöman documenting himself, documenting Lena. Lena builds an archive of her life, and her discoveries, as the film explores social and political themes of the period. Blurring the lines between fact and the fictional life of Lena, through interviews with people on the streets, and even an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., while he was on a visit to Sweden. 

The film's frank portrayal  of Lena's sex life caused controversy on the film's release. With graphic nudity and simulated sexual intercourse and oral sex, the film came to the attention of the censors.  

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.

Purported to be the world's first sex doll, is said to be the creation of Nazi scientists in 1941. Borghild, was a sex doll or "gynoid", developed as a "female hygiene project" to stop soldiers on the front having sex with prostitutes. It was believed that the project was developed by Himmler, and approved by Hitler, to give inflatable sex dolls to the troops, that they could carry in their back-packs. 

The project was pushed forward by an ambitious Danish doctor, called Hannussen. He wanted to create a doll with an ”artifial face of lust”, for the soldiers.

A total of fifty dolls were supposedly ordered for use in Jersey by officials, but the purported project was cancelled by Himmler after two years, after soldiers refused to carry them due to the fear of embarrassment if they were captured and one was found in their possession. The bombing of Dresden also supposedly destroyed the factories that were planned to build the dolls, as well as the records of the project.

After many years of investigation, with no evidence to support the story, many historians now consider that the Borghild Project is a hoax. However in 2009, a black comedy titled The Borghilde Project was released. Starring Jaye Davidson, the film presents the project as being factual.

I was AFK all day yesterday, so no Cult Film Friday post. So instead it's a Cult Cinema Saturday, with the brilliant British-American sci-fi movie Phase IV, directed by the film-maker and famous graphic designer Saul Bass. Bass's only full length movie he directed. Bass is better known, for his graphic design work on some of the most iconic movie posters ever made.

The film, which was shot in both England and Africa, despite being set in Arizona, was a commercial failure on initial release. However it quickly gained a cult status through regular TV runs in the mid to late 70s and early 80s. 

Due to a cosmic event, known as a "phase", ants in a remote desert location develop an intelligent hive-mind and begin to attack the desert inhabitants and facilities of the scientists that are studying them. The movie became well regarded for its stunning cinematography, especially the close-up shots of ants, which were filmed by wildlife photographer Ken Middleham.

Bass originally filmed a spectacular, surreal montage lasting four minutes, showing what life would be like in the 'new' Earth, but this was cut by the distributor. The montage was supposed to suggest that the two surviving characters were altered by the ants creating the next step in evolution for humanity and insects. Shots from the original montage sequence appear in the theatrical trailer, which was likely prepared before cuts were made to the film.

The Tit and the Moon (La Teta y la luna) is a film from 1994. A Spanish/French co-production, directed by Bigas Luna. It stars Mathilda May (the naked vampire alien in Lifeforce from the 1984 Tobe Hopper directed sci-fi horror film) as a Portuguese dancer. A young boy, who resents the arrival of his baby brother, asks moon for a tit that only he can feed from. His obsession with breasts results in him finding Mathilda's character, but she holds the attention of many men in the town. Will the young lad achieve his wish, and have her tits for his own?

The Tit And The Moon is a beautifully told comic story of love and obsession, that carefully finds a balance between comedy, sexual obsession, and the dreams of childhood. Through surreal fantasy sequences, it delicately and irreverently handles its subject matter, creating a gem of a movie that is warm and endearing while playing with eroticism and sexual fantasy. 

The film is considered as the final part of Bigas Luna's "Iberian Trilogy" of films, which also include Jamón, Jamón (1992) and Huevos de oro (1993).

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.

House (ハウス) is a 1977 Japanese cult horror comedy film. A group of girls travel into the countryside, to a house that is possessed with supernatural powers. The house attempts to devour the girls in increasingly bizarre and surreal ways. Beyond that it's hard to describe the magnificent madness that is House. There are moments that hark back to the era of silent movie slapstick comedies, the special effects are just weird, the acting is terrible, and the whole thing is utter nonsense. But those are all the things that make House such a great film. As it merrily skips along as a camp Japanese teen comedy, and suddenly switches to disturbing horror, and back again.

The film straddles the line between horror comedy and experimental arthouse film. With the screen filled with stunning visuals, it plays out like a bad LSD trip. With a floating disembodied head that has a bum biting fetish, a carnivorous piano, vicious killer bedding, and the blood gushing cartoon cat. The whole thing leaves you wondering what the hell you have just watched.

Critically panned (which often makes for great cult film), director Nobuhiko Obayashi went on to direct the live-action version of The Girl Who Leapt Through time in 1983, and the dark erotic cult film Sada (1998), based on the story of Sada Abe who  erotically asphyxiating her lover, Kichizo Ishida in 1936. Sada  then went on to cut off his penis and testicles and carrying them around with her in her handbag. Obayashi's film of the story is another must see of Japanese cult cinema.

Bit lovely bit of mid-70s exploitation-splatter fun with Blood Sucking Freaks, which was originally released in theatres under the title The Incredible Torture Show. An all out gore-fest, presented in a campy style, reminiscent of earlyHerschell Gordon Lewis's gore movies. A true expilotation classic, that unapologetically show-horns in lots of over-the-top violence, bad acting, boobs and ridiculous laughs.

In the movie Master Sardu (Seamus O'Brien) runs a Grand Guignol-style theatre with his assistant Ralphus. The shows that they present are verging on torture porn, but the audiences dismiss the shows as merely fake. However, the acts on stage are real, using women the pair have kidnapped and used as sex slaves. And thus the stage is set for a series of gory torture and murder set pieces, which include skull crushing, amputation, tooth pulling, decapitation, the list goes on. The most famous scene features one unfortunate victim having their skull drilled through the top with a household drill, and their brains sucked out with a straw. 

The movie was panned universally by critics, with some saying things such as "I think you're a cruel little nutcase if you talk someone else into seeing it", and "The nastiest, filthiest and just about WORST thing you will EVER SEE". The criticism of the movie being far more over-the-top than the movie itself. There are far worse movies than Blood Sucking Freaks. For me it's a perfect slice of 70s exploitation, and a true classic of the genre. A must see for any cult horror film fans.

From director Andrey Tarkovskiy, who brought us Solaris in 1972, comes this cult piece of philosophical Russian sci-fi. The Stalker is a guide, that leads two men, a writer and a professor through a strange wasteland known as the Zone, to find a room in the deepest heart of the Zone that will make your deepest desires come true. The film is loosely based on the novel Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Considered by many to be one of the best sci-fi films of all time, Stalker is an exercise in deep and considered metaphysics, forcing viewers to contemplate the philosophical layers that Tarkovskiy weaves into his seemingly simplistic narrative. The wasteland of the Zone is littered with symbolism, as viewers are forced to make sense of the often poetic use of imagery and sublime cinematography. Making Stalker a film that you must engage with, think about, and be left with innumerable questions after watching it. Creating a sci-fi piece in its rawest form. 

Stalker is long and drawn out, but never boring. Much of it shot in a brown tinted monochrome, the film consists of 142 shots in 163 minutes, with an average shot length of more than one minute and many shots lasting for more than four minutes. That is until the end, which is shot in rapid cuts, all the more compelling after the long slow build-up. 

Also known as Thriller - A Cruel Picture (Thriller – en grym film in Swedish), is a controversial Swedish exploitation film, that was the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino when he made Kill Bill. A brutal rape and revenge saga, it was originally banned in Sweden and the USA on release, only allowed to be shown after major cuts were made to the film, including the removal of the infamous hardcore sex scene.

A sex trafficked and brutalised prostitute takes revenge on those who have wronged her. Muted after after being raped as a child, and forced into heroin addiction and pimped out by a man she meets. She is blinded in one eye by her pimp for refusing to take a client. She eventually escapes, and begins to take bloody revenge on the men who have taken her life from her.

The film stars 70s porn starlet Christina Lindberg, who had starred in the even more controversial Swedish exploitation porn film, Dairy Of A Rape in 1971. A film that was pretty much banned in all countries. 

Despite its full on exploitation credentials They Call Her One Eye is actually a above average revenge thriller. It is slow paced and actually carefully handled. It's easy to see why Tarantino fell in love with this film and paid heavy homage to it in Kill Bill. It has become an absolute classic of cult cinema. And although it isn't a film you would go back to time and time again, it is a must watch for anyone that claims to be a fan of cult cinema.