Cult Trailers: Joe D'Amato

Showing posts with label Joe D'Amato. Show all posts

Friday, November 16, 2012

2020 Texas Gladiators (1984)

Clip: "The Deer Hunter scene"

Full Movie

Directed by Joe D'Amato

Written by George Eastman

Starring Al Cliver, Peter Hooten, Hal Yamanouchi, Donald O'Brien and Sabrina Siani

IMDB

Friday, August 24, 2012

Ator, The Fighting Eagle (1982)

Scene: "I'll talk with our father."

Scene: "Shadow Warriors"

Directed by Joe D'Amato

Starring Miles O'Keeffe, Edmund Purdom, Laura Gemser and Sabrina Siani

IMDB

Monday, April 27, 2009

Full Movie

Directed by Joe D'Amato.

Starring Al Cliver, Laura Gemser, George Eastman and Gordon Mitchell.

IMDB

More Mad Max inspired madness from Italy. The wildly prolific D'Amato (Antropophagus, Buio Omega) helmed this one and he brought back favourite George Eastman and Lucio Fulci regular Al Cliver (Zombie, The Beyond, The Black Cat).

Also look for spaghetti western and peplum star Gordon Mitchell.

This is not the best example of the genre - nods would go out to Enzo G. Castellari's "1990: Bronx Warriors" and Sergio Martino's "2019: After The Fall Of New York", but it's a great little diversion and at least on par with Fulci's similar "The New Gladiators".

My Letterboxd Review:

I can think of at least 5 Italian post-apocalyptic films that are better than Endgame, but the genre is so inherently entertaining and crazy that even the mediocre ones are worth seeing. All you need to see on the screen are a good rock quarry location, eyepatches, steel-plated shinpads, fingerless gloves, George Eastman and plenty of mannequins thrown under cars. Endgame has all of this and the eternally depressing Al Cliver in a rare leading role. Average for the genre but the pre-Running Man scenario is fun and the dubbing is typically hilarious, especially for Eastman's character.

Absurd (1981) aka Antropophagus 2 aka Monster Hunter

Directed by Joe D'Amato.

Starring George Eastman and Edmund Purdom.

IMDB

Veteran Italian director D'Amato directed this, although in the English speaking prints he went under the pseudonym Peter Newton, which was a common practice back then. American distributors were wary that their drive-in audiences wouldn't give European films a chance so many Italian and Spanish names were Anglicized along the way (D'Amato probably used more pseudonyms over the years than any other director in history!)

This is D'Amato's follow up to his notorious Antropophagus from 1980 (D'Amato was credited with directing 9 films in 1980 alone!) and it is as much of a gorefest as the first one.

George Eastman (Rabid Dogs, 1990: Bronx Warriors, Baba Yaga) returns from the first film to play the psycho and he hacks and chops his way through this grindfest. He also wrote the screenplay. Edmund Purdom (Pieces, The Fifth Cord), who just passed away on New Years Day of this year, plays a small role as well.

Not surprisingly, this was on the list of banned films in the UK during the 80's making it a so-called "Video Nasty".

This film has not officially been released on DVD yet so good luck finding it without spending some bucks for the Monster Hunter on Wizard Video edition on Ebay for the VHS.