Above we have two striking Italian one-sheets for the French porn production La fille à la fourrure, aka I porno zombi, aka Naked Lovers, aka The Girl in the Fur Coat, aka Starship Eros, released in 1977. That’s a lot of akas, but the plot here is really simple. Aliens from planet Eros come to Earth and re-animate the bodies of the recently deceased in order to do some kinky sexual experimentation with humans. We find all this out when two newlyweds honeymooning at a secluded cabin are rudely interrupted by the groom’s former wife, who’s supposed to be six feet under. He chases her into the woods, discovers she’s actually a resurrected corpse and, well, cue the synthesizer music. As a side note, you may have noticed that the posters list an actress named Barbara Moose. With a name like that, we knew you’d want to know more, so we located a shot of the elusive Moose in her snowy habitat. These creatures can tip the scales at up to 1,400 pounds, but strangely, this one looks like it weighs less than a tenth that amount. Probably climate change has endangered her food supply. So next time you start up your SUV remember this sad photo and recognize—we’ve got to learn to share the planet. 

First the Festival of San Fermin, and now Spain’s World Cup victory. To say last night’s celebration was exuberant is an understatement. Nevertheless, we’re back to doing what we do, so here’s a random Spanish-language magazine we ran across, the long-running film publication Ecran, which is not from Spain but rather from Chile. This issue is circa 1965, with Italian actress Elsa Martinelli on the cover. Martinelli starred in a couple of our favorite cheesy flicks from the sixties, which means we’ll be getting back to her in more detail soon. 

Amanti d’oltretomba, aka Love from Beyond the Tomb, aka Nightmare Castle proves true what we’ve always said—inheriting an old castle is never the stroke of good luck it seems. Suddenly you’re rich, yes, but with the wealth comes nightmares, disembodied maniacal laughter, and lots of creepy-ass organ music. And an old portrait of your dead relative whose eyes seem so… realistic. Oh, and a tomb. Let’s not forget the tomb. We decided this film should be called Nightmare Dialogue, especially after these lines were delivered with a straight face: “This is a case that makes one think very seriously about the frailty of human life. Only ten minutes ago that man was the picture of health, and now he’s ready for the worm.” Are you ready for Amanti d’oltretomba? It premiered in Italy today in 1965. 

French-born actress Carole André, whose role in the Italian b-movie Yor: the Hunter from the Future, aka Il mondo di Yor, made her a cult favorite among the sword and sorcery set. 

Spanish promo poster for Silvio Narizzano’s Italian heist flick Senza ragione, 1973. The title would translate to something like “without reason”, which sounds okay to us, but it was instead released in the U.S. as Alias Redneck, a change that makes sense only when you see Telly Savalas chewing the scenery as a psycho named Memphis. If the film were as good as the poster we’d really have something, but no such luck. It’s probably worth a look for avid fans of poliziesco flicks, but proceed at your own risk. 

Promo poster for Amasi Damiani’s prohibition-themed gangster thriller Blood Story, aka Storia di sangue, with Tony Kendall and Femi Benussi, 1972.

Above is an amazing German promo poster for Der Schwanz des Skorpions, aka La coda dello scorpione, aka The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail. You may have noticed we’re on a bit of a giallo kick of late. This one was directed by Sergio Martino, who also gave us the unforgettably titled thrillers Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence. When a woman inherits a million dollars from a husband who died in a plane crash, people start crawling out of the woodwork and all of them want a share of the loot. We won’t go into more detail, except to say that it’s pretty good, and the interesting Swedish actress Anita Strindberg—whose fantastically-shaped mouth probably fueled about fifty million erotic fantasies during the seventies—co-stars with hunky George Hilton. The title refers to a scorpion cufflink that’s a clue to the killer’s identity, but we didn’t really pay too much attention to the plot details because we were too busy contemplating the anti-gravitational properties of Strindberg’s two, uh, body modifications. They must be among the first to appear on a movie screen, so Der Schwanz des Skorpions isn’t just a fun giallo, it’s also historically significant. Sort of. It opened in West Berlin, West Germany, today in 1973. 

It’s been a while since we posted a comic book, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been reading any. Of late we’ve been enjoying Ramba, a sort of female revenge serial written and drawn by Rossano Rossi, Marco Delizia and Fabio Valdambrini. Ramba is filled with sex, castrations, murder, perversion and other pulpy goodness, all courtesy of the character of Ramba, who is basically an oversexed hitwoman. When she isn’t fulfilling contracts, she’s running afoul of random men and having to put them in their proper place—the grave, usually. In issue 1, for instance, she tries to masturbate in an alley and of course you know how men are—always sticking their noses where they don’t belong. After Ramba goes Benihana on them, it’s off to kill her target, who she stabs in the chest and then uses for a little sexual pleasure while his lifeblood is leaking out of him. Oh, and just for good measure, she also urinates in his face. It's fun for the whole family. Want to see men finally get what they deserve? One or two issues of this should do the trick.

Japanese poster for Italian horror master Dario Argento’s 1977 giallo Tenebre, released in Japan as Shiadô, or Shadow. 

Promo poster for Gli orrori del museo nero, aka Horrors of the Black Museum, aka Crime in the Museum of Horrors, with Michael Gough and June Cunningham. Made in Britain, and originally released in “hypnovista”, whatever that is, this opens with a scene of a woman falling for the old spring-loaded-needles-in-the-binoculars trick, and ends with the surprising spectacle of a man climbing the outside of a rapidly moving ferris wheel. Fans of the art of parkour should see that sequence. Everyone else, if you’re into old-fashioned Hammer-style pit horror, watch the whole movie. Gli orrori del museo nero opened in Italy today in 1959.