Vintage Pulp | Apr 23 2024 |
We recommend that you keep your distance—from the movie.
Japanese posters for U.S. film productions are sometimes so good we forget that the movies might not be. Case in point: the above poster was painted by the famed Japanese artist Seito, who was behind promos for films like Star Wars and Flesh Gordon. He produced this for the horror movie Rattlers, which premiered in the U.S. today in 1976 and reached Japan on an indeterminate date sometime afterward. The Japanese title is to the point:恐怖!蛇地獄means “Horror! Snake Hell.” The movie is its own special hell. It's about a bunch of rattlesnakes that run wild, and it's sssssssssssssssso bad. University of California herpetologist Sam Chew figures out how to deal with the offending reptiles, with the help of intrepid reporter Elisabet Chauvet, but nobody figured out how to deal with a bad script, a weak director, and a zero-charisma lead. You can let this one slide.
Femmes Fatales | Nov 12 2021 |
I like my men stirred, not shaken.
Above you see Japanese actress and singer Rushia Santô, who we last encountered in the film Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede, aka Female Teacher: In Front of the Students. As an actress she worked in the misleadingly named genre of roman porno (romantic pornography), which consists of non-explicit but highly sexual dramas and comedies. She made only six movies. That's not many, but with titles like Mischievous Lolita: Attacking the Virgin from Behind (Itazura Lolita: Ushirokara virgin) and Sexy doll: Abe Sada sansei, we'd wager her imprint on Japanese cinema was indelible. This shot is from around 1982.
Vintage Pulp | Apr 9 2021 |
When they say high school is torture usually they're kidding.
The beautiful Rushia Santô made only a few films during her brief career. One of them was the Nikkatsu Studios roman porno flick Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede, aka Female Teacher: In Front of the Students. Santô plays a high school teacher, and since her school looks like a prison it's no surprise she experiences a prison style shower rape. The student she eventually accuses of attacking her—Tôru Nakane, who the audience knows is innocent—retaliates by grabbing her and keeping her prisoner over spring break. This being a Nikkatsu film, that imprisonment naturally involves making Santô realize she's a sex maniac, and by the end of the break Santó, the studly Nakane, and his girlfriend Rina Oka are humping like rabbits.
The mystery that isn't a mystery is finally solved in the last part of this 70-minute sprint. There are some weak attempts at humor here and there, such as during a sex scene between Nakane and Oka when he's simultaneously eating a sticky bun and she's eating a banana, but the moment for cinematic discussions of whether some women like to be submissive—still ongoing as recently as in 2015's Fifty Shades of Grey—has definitively passed. As far as we're concerned anything done between consenting adults is fine, but consenting is the operative word. Nikkatsu films often play around with that concept, but these days such explorations are discordant, to say the least. Like all the obscure movies we watch, we're looking for forgotten gems. This is no gem, and maybe just needs to be forgotten. Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede premiered in Japan today in 1982.
Yay! Recess is over! Back to our soul sucking penitentiary of a high school!
I have a very bad feeling about this movie.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 15 2017 |
Don't you want to be one of the cruel kids?
Above, a poster for Kokosei bancho: zubeko seito-ha, aka High School Boss 4: Bad Girl Group, which was the fourth film in a series after:
Kokosei Bancho, aka High School Gang Leader.
Kokosei bancho: botate asobi, aka High School Boss 2: The All-Out Game.
Kôkôsei banchô: Shin'ya hôsô, aka High School Boss 3: Midnight Broadcasting.
All these films came out in the second half of 1970, which is impressive but not unusual—that's just how quickly pinku filmmakers worked. We couldn't locate this one, so we can't summarize it, but you know what to expect. Kokosei bancho: zubeko seito-ha premiered today in 1970.
Kokosei Bancho, aka High School Gang Leader.
Kokosei bancho: botate asobi, aka High School Boss 2: The All-Out Game.
Kôkôsei banchô: Shin'ya hôsô, aka High School Boss 3: Midnight Broadcasting.
All these films came out in the second half of 1970, which is impressive but not unusual—that's just how quickly pinku filmmakers worked. We couldn't locate this one, so we can't summarize it, but you know what to expect. Kokosei bancho: zubeko seito-ha premiered today in 1970.