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1. A Day at the Beach (1970)
Ah, Roman Polanski, the director guaranteed to trigger people on the internet. I make no assumptions about your moral leanings, but you might find it gratifying to know that he only wrote this one. Another guy directed it.
The Premise: An failed poet with a serious drinking problem takes his niece (?) out for a day at the beach.
Overall: A pitch perfect movie in every respect. From the opening credits our failed poet is a thoroughly unlikeable, thoroughly untrustworthy man. The film never wavers from this aspect of his character and that's its greatest strength.
2. The Demon (1979)
The Premise: South African slasher movie featuring a killer whose preferred method of execution is a plastic bag placed over his victim's head.
Overall: We sat through a lot of movies like this in the 80s, VHS-friendly remnants of a time when everyone was trying to cash in on the surprise success of John Carpenter's Halloween.
It won't blow your mind or anything, but if you're in that kind of mood it fits the bill well enough. Just don't expect a coherent plot. It's extremely disjointed, very dark (bad lighting) in parts, and generally difficult to follow.
3. Spawn of the Slithis (1978)
The Premise: A monster stalks the canals of Venice, CA, and an amateur investigative reporter is all that stands between this monster and its next victim.
Overall: Generic monster movie with a splash -- if you'll excuse the pun -- of Jaws.
4. Medusa (1973)
The Premise: George Hamilton produced and starred in this half baked crime picture.
Overall: The island of Rhodes is a novel setting, but this movie has little else to recommend it.
Fun Fact: Hamilton's costar Luciana Paluzzi appeared as a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. assassin in 1965's Thunderball.
5. The Killer with a Thousand Eyes (1974)
Man, there must be dozens (hundreds?) of Italian movies just like this one. Low budget crime/suspense knockoffs of much better films.
The Premise: A very Italian-looking narcotics officer journeys from London to Lisbon to bust up a drug ring.
Overall: Very boring, but somehow more entertaining than Medusa above. More nudity and more violence would have made it better, but they probably didn't have the budget for that. Wikipedia lists this one in their Giallo entry, but I would argue the point.
6. Blood Thirst (1971)
Black and white? In 1971? Blood Thirst was filmed way back in 1965, but wasn't released theatrically until 1971.
The Premise: A New York detective visits the Philippines to investigate a series of sex crimes. And yes, this movie was actually filmed in the Philippines.
Overall: Not a bad movie. I'm sure that in 1971 it already seemed dated, but it has a nice film noir vibe that occasionally veers into genuine creepiness.
7. Expulsion of the Devil (1973)
The Premise: a group of people contend with a haunted house in the French countryside.
Overall: It's not eventful like that other, much more widely known movie, but Expulsion of the Devil will likely remind you of 1982's Poltergeist. This said, where Poltergeist is more blatantly supernatural, this film ties the "haunting" to a theme of female adolescence.
Fun Fact: Gerard Depardieu has a minor role in this movie.
8. Murder Mansion (1972)
The Premise: Another spooky old house, another group of strangers encountering the supernatural.
Overall: Not very good. The plot doesn't make much sense, and there's not enough gore to satisfy anyone in search of Giallo-style thrills.
9. Don't Go in the House (1979)*
The horror of disco meets the horror of horror head-on. That scene where he goes shopping for his disco outfit is one of those "time capsule moments" for sure.
The Premise: A psychopath who dabbles in schizophrenia creates a fireproof room for the purpose of incinerating his victims.
Overall: Did I watch the censored version? Feels like it. That scene of his first victim's demise... seems like some gratuitous nudity was cut out. Maybe the filmmakers considered such nudity distasteful, you know, considering the nuanced film they were trying to create.
(Yes, that was sarcasm)
Don't Go in the House is strictly B movie material, but I found it entertaining. The first killing, the disco scenes, the ending are all memorable, even if the movie spends too much time inside the house. The killer's conversations with his "voices" could have been used to great effect, but the screenplay never fleshes out the relationship between these voices, the killer's mother, and what he does to his unsuspecting victims.
Fun Fact: Dan Grimaldi, the star of this movie, is now a Professor of Mathematics.
10. Ritual of Evil (1970)
The Premise: A psychotherapist crosses paths with SATAN.
Overall: Seldom do so, so many words add up to so little story. Louis Jourdan walks around, cross-examines people, drives a car, all without managing to be the hero in his own movie. To top it off the ending is very dumb, so dumb I regretted sitting through the film up to that point.
Yeah, you could say it was a made-for-TV movie, and yeah, there was a lot of occult stuff like this on the air at the time, but it's still not a good film.
11. Orgy of the Living Dead (a.k.a. "The Hanging Woman")(1972)
The Premise: Zombie-tinged murder mystery set in a spooky European castle.
Overall: A decent movie, and good fun if you're looking for something Giallo-adjacent. Despite the overdubs and bogus end credits this film was a Spanish-Italian effort (like Murder Mansion above), and most of those involved had ties to the Spanish or Italian film industries.
12. Satan's School for Girls (1973)
"You've gotta let your mind hang loose."
The Premise: Made-for-TV movie set in an evil girl's school
Overall: Didn't make much of an impression one way or the other. Watchable I guess. but nothing to write home about.
13. Psychomania (a.k.a. "The Death Wheelers") (1973)
The Premise: A biker game overcomes death through the power of positive thinking.
Overall: Very much a product of its time. Late 60s spiritualism + biker movie + a trippy room where one meets... Satan? = Psychomania. It's a fun little film and I wouldn't mind watching it again.
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14. Sweet Sugar (1972)
The Premise: Yet another women's prison movie, with the exception that this one was filmed in Costa Rica (!) and instead of a women's prison they're sent to a sugar cane field for two years.
Overall: I don't know if the humor in this movie is intentional or unintentional -- I suspect those in charge of the English overdubs were having a blast in the recording room -- but whichever it was this movie's hilarious. You gotta love any movie where the head guard announces something like, "The doctor's performing medical experiments, can we get some volunteers?" and SOMEONE ACTUALLY VOLUNTEERS.
Besides all this the lead, Phyllis Davis, is stunning. She'd go on to a career in TV, and end her career as Hostage #3 in Steven Seagal's Under Siege.
15. The Humanoid (1979)
The Premise: Does this movie have a premise? Does it even have a story? It seems like some Italian guy set out to copy elements from Star Wars and forgot to add the plot.
Overall: There's a lot of memorably bad stuff in this film: the sets, the costumes, the dialogue and most of all the acting. I just hope that "Tom-Tom" made it back to whatever planet that was.
Fun Fact: Richard Kiel, who played "Jaws" in two Bond films, is to some extent the star of this one. He is joined by Corrine Clery and Barbara Bach, two actresses who were also Bond girls in the 70s.
16. Malibu High (1979)
Don't get too excited by the poster. She's not even in the movie.
The Premise: A high school girl turns to prostitution as a way of rebelling against the status quo.
Overall: The acting in this one's even worse than The Humanoid above. Given an actress with more screen presence it might have been alright, but as it is it's a real chore to get through. Even the nudity was boring.
17. Hollywood Man (1976)
One wonders how closely the financing of this film mirrored its protagonist's difficulty with regard to repaying a debt to organized crime. I'm aware of the stereotypes involved, but there sure are a lot of Italian names in the credits and some of the "jobs" attributed to them sure seem suspicious.
The Premise: A fading Hollywood star rushes to complete his passion project before the mob shuts everything down.
Overall: It's not bad but the ending doesn't make much sense. Why would they do that in broad daylight? In a public place? Given the papers the protagonist signed earlier in the movie he was in no position to bargain for anything, let alone implicate those involved in various crimes.
Fun Fact: William Smith might be recognizable from 1982's Conan the Barbarian, in which he played Conan's father.
18. The Cat Creature (1973)
The Premise: An Egyptologist and a detective contend with a supernatural force.
Overall: This is exactly the kind of movie that freaked kids out in the late 70s and early 80s. It's super cheesy in retrospect, but atmospheric music and sound effects went a long way toward scaring kids back then. Adults will find the ending unintentionally hilarious.
Fun Fact 1: Meredith Baxter would go on to become Meredith Baxter-Birney, widely known as "Elyse Keaton" in the hit sitcom Family Ties.
Fun Fact 2: Some elements of this movie are nods to 1942's Cat People, which was remade in 1982 as a vehicle for Nastassja Kinski.
19. In Search of Gregory (1970)
The Premise: Julie Christie pursues a man who might be too good to be true.
Overall: It's a charming movie that sticks the landing. I particularly enjoyed the "Auto-Ball" scene.
20. Vega$ (1978-1981)
NOT a movie, but I did get here via Phyllis Davis, who stars in Sweet Sugar above.
I watched episodes 1 and 2 and skimmed through a few others. I was interested because my sister lives in Vegas, and when I visit her she often talks about the history of that city and the long gone hotels, casinos and restaurants that were once found on or near The Strip.
The Premise: Hard boiled detective Dan Tanna foils wrongdoers in sin city.
Overall: It gets very silly, especially as regards any subplot involving Dan Tanna's "soft spot for women," but I stopped watching for the same reason the general public did -- it got formulaic and boring as the episodes wore on. It's interesting to see some of the older hotels and casinos back when they were new(er), but this aspect of the show wasn't enough to keep me entertained for long.
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*Wikipedia lists the release date as 1980, not 1979, but it was definitely filmed in 79.
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