Movies From Mars

Jim Brown is Slaughter "The baddest cat that ever walked the earth". Slaughter is not only his name... Its his business. When Slaughter's daddy gets knocked off by some greasy Italian mobster types it is time to get revenge.

Slaughter intercepts a drug deal at the airport and kills the wrong man. The FBI bring him in but instead of arresting him they send him to South America where he will track down the man that killed his father and kill him but he also has to bring back information about "The IBM computer" wow pretty weird to hear this stuff in a 70's Blaxploitation movie huh? Anyway, Slaughter couldn't give a shit about that jive-ass computer shit. "When I find em, I'm gonna kill em... and anyone else that gets in my way".  Slaughter is another example of a blaxploitation bad-ass character who is too cool for life. He gets all the bitches. Even the white ones and of course kills any honky who has the balls to step up.

When I said that Slaughter gets all the white bitches did I mention that Stella Stevens (Poseidon Adventure) is his main girl. Slaughter came out the same year as Poseidon and Stella is looking pretty ripe in here and luckily for us dudes this mama doesn't mind showing off some naked flesh in this one. We are treated to bikini shots, a sex scene and a steamy shower scene. Thank you Stella. We are also treated some darker meat & gratuitous nudity from Marlene Clark who Slaughter strips naked and throws her out into a hallway. Aside from the females Cameron Mitchell plays a racist cop "Who do you think you are, nigger?" and one of my all time favorite actors, the great Don Gordon (The Mack, Out Of The Blue) shows up as Slaughters white cowardly partner. Don Gordon is great as usual. He can't get any of the bitches and is basically afraid of his own shadow yet somehow he never misses out on any of Slaughters action. Shoot-outs, car chases and brawls, Don Gordon is there. Rip Torn is our main villain here. He is a woman beating, friend killing, racist, mobster who wants Slaughters head.

Slaughter has a very cool and stylish look to it. They use a lot of wide angel lenses and fishbowl lenses. Stuff like that to heighten the action scenes. We have a awesome scene where Slaughter chases a plane down a runway and crashes his car into it. There is plenty of bloody shootings (complete with 70's blood and squirting squibs), naked female flesh, jive 70's jargon and memorable quotes "You know what they say about these dudes... They all got rhythm", knife fights, crash and burn car chases, an awesome soundtrack and a man who is burned alive inside his car.

They made a sequel to this called Slaughters Big Ripoff which I might like just a little bit more for its over the top shenanigans but both films are a great watch for lovers of blaxploitation action movies in the urban jungle.

What we have here is the very first Blaxploitation film in Fred "The Hammer" Williamson. Made with Williamson in mind and even named after him this one stands as a milestone in the athletic actors long exploitation works. Hammer is not the best in the genre and it certainly isn't the worst and well worth a look for anyone who digs Fred Williamson or just blaxploitation films for that matter.

Williamson plays a down on his luck blue collar worker named B.J.. Yep his name is B.J. but this brotha doesn't suck for anyone. When B.J. is fired from his shitty day job for being a total bad-ass mofo and beating the shit out of a white fascist type, he is offered a job and a chance to be a professional boxer. As B.J. makes it to the top he gains a bit of street fame and earns the nickname The Hammer... Just like in real life huh? However its not all bitches and Cadillacs for B.J. Hammer. His boss is a corrupt mobster named Big Sid and when The Hammer gets on Big Sid's bad side he has to answer to Sid's big goons. Drive-In movie fanatics will be happy to know that the heavy of the white mobsters is played by the great William Smith (Run Angel Run, Black Samson) and he is the stereo typical racist, murdering scumbag that shows up in so many of these blaxploitation movies.

William Smith specializes in killing black men who are no longer of service to him. In one of the most memorable scenes Will Smith runs a pimped out drug dealer down with his car and leaves a bloody mess of a corpse behind but he also pulls the old shoot-em-up with some drugs and make it look like an overdose trick. Ya know from Superfly, Coffy and The Mack. In reality this doesn't really seem like the best way to knock somebody off but it always seems to work in these blaxploitation movies. I can't help but wonder the audience reaction to this in the 70's. Did people really think the man was killing street people off with poisoned dope? Anyway in some senses Hammer is pretty stereotypical but in others it is very different. For instance Fred Williamson is one hundred percent a good guy. He isn't a drug dealer and he isn't pimping bitches out. Even the cops in this one are good guys and I guess that's because the leading detective is a black man.

That Bad D'Urville Martin from Dolemite shows up as a big mouth, shit talking joker type and The Hammer has to set him straight with some sweet 70's jive jargon. I guess B.J.'s words of street wisdom hits close to home because in the end D'Urville cleans up his act and helps The Hammer get his revenge.

Hammer is paced properly with a fair amount of nudity which is evenly distributed throughout the film. We have white titties, black titties and even some interracial love making but for me the best moment of naked female flesh involves Marilyn Joi (Ilsa : Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks, Kentucky Fried Movie) as a leather clad dominatrix at a funky strip club. This topless beauty comes complete with a whip and everything and it makes for a wonderfully gratuitous moment in bad taste.

As expected Fred The Hammer Williamson gets the girl and saves the day. As I said before it isn't the greatest Williamson movie but is still worth owning. Check it out sucka!

Like the saying goes "They just don't make them like they used to". Then you might get some asshole youngster who wants to argue the fact because they like the way c.g.i. looked on the last fucking Transformers movie or something. Well, all I have to say to them is nobody making dangerous movies anymore but they would never even dare an attempt at an exploitation title like The Legend Of Nigger Charley.

Perhaps the foreign poster is less offensive and safer to put on my blog. Well its a damn shame because The Legend Of Nigger Charley is a great piece of exploitative history. This one brings the Blaxploitation genre into the western territory. Of course it would spawn a sequel called The Soul Of Nigger Charlie but would also be a big influence for future film Boss Nigger which also stars Fred (The Hammer) Williamson and that bad D'Urville Martin that we all know and love as Willie Green from Dolemite.

In this one Fred Williamson plays Nigger Charley, a black slave in the old west. Charley's master is on his death bed and as a last act of kindness he sets Charley free but things can't be that easy for our gun-slinging soul brother. The man who is taking over the estate wants Charley for a whipping boy but he bites off more then he can handle when he tries to stop Charley. Charley beats that honky to death and it wont be long before the law is after him. Not even a freed slave has the right to kill a white man. Not in this movie anyway.

So Charley takes bad D'Urville Martin and another friend named Joshua with him and they shoot their way across the desert. When they hit an exceptionally racist town, they decide to "Warn the west. Nigger Charley ain't runnin no more". They kill anybody who tries to keep them from their freedom and its not long before the three outlaws are growing in numbers. African Americans are eager to join up with the bad-ass crew and fight for the love of brotha. Of course Mr. Williamson is the hero and of course he gets all the bitches, even half white ones. We get some really cheesy shoot-em-up scenes and a whole lot of racial slurs thrown into the mix and what it all comes down to is that ain't nobody ever gonna own this nigga again.

Personally preferring this earlier film over Boss Nigger, I would recommend The Legend Of Nigger Charlie to anyone who likes Blaxploitation movies and Fred Williamson in particular. It comes complete with a cool theme song and a crazy black old-timer in a big hat who tells some pretty crazy stories. We also have a bad guy who calls himself The Preacher and quotes from the bible before he kills mother fuckers. Sound familiar? Cough... Pulp Fiction.

The Black Godfather is a pretty standard run of the mill Blaxploitation flick. In fact it is pretty much a ripoff of Black Ceasar with the oh so familiar tale of a black man trying to make it to the top and gain complete control over his community.

"Community" seems to be the word of the movie. Black Dynamite  even poked fun at this "But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs in this community" because every five seconds somebody in The Black Godfather is saying "We need to keep drugs out of the community".

Aside from the "Community" reference in Black Dynamite it is very possible that the far superior Dolemite borrowed from this movie with a black militant who sleeps in a coffin but unfortunately we do not get a bad-ass motha-fucka like Rudy Ray Moore. What we do get is a old timer named Nate Williams who has been running the show in the "black community" for a very long time. Nate is a pimp, a pusher, and a dangerous man but even he feels the pressure of "the man" that is a white mobster named Tony. Nate Williams takes a youngster under his wing named J.J. and gives him some work but its not long before J.J. wants to step up to being The Black Godfather. J.J. declares war against Tony and forms a militant group with a promise to keep drugs out of... you guessed it... The community. Of course J.J. doesn't care about drugs on the street but this is the only way to gain the respect of his followers. All he really wants is to keep the white man out of his neighborhood. Tony and his boys kill Nate Williams and kidnap J.J.'s girl. This all comes together with a big shoot-out in a hospital. Sounds like Black Cesar again, doesn't it?

The Black Godfather does have some bare breasted women running about but I'm not so sure if it is appreciated. We have a cross eyed junkie played by Betsee Finlee who can also be seen in the nude in Double Exposure which possibly sports the ugliest women in cinematic history. Some of the other treats that The Black Godfather has to offer is visible boom mics. An airplane crash and burn, car chase (complete with crash and burn), gun violence, kung fu bitches and a meat cleaver is buried into an achy-breaky skull. We also have plenty of skid row junkies roaming about looking for a fix and white people are refered to as "Cockroaches". The Black Godfather has little to no social commentary but I suppose there is some sort of anti drug message in there.

If you like any sort of polish on your blaxploitation films you are probably wasting your time. The Black Godfather is not a bad time waster for genre fans but all others should probably stay away and stick to something with a bit more production value like The Mack or just go in the opposite, over the top direction and re watch Dolemite.

Why do people like this movie? For some strange reason it is really hard to find anything negative said about this one on the Internet and that just really baffles me. From the looks of the movie poster one can't help but think that Black Girl is going to be a bad-ass 70's Blaxploitation flick. Well I might as well give fair warning to cult film enthusiasts... This is not the case. Black Girl is basically a soap opera with some foul language and some really bad dancing.

The picture on the left should give you a pretty good idea of Black Girl's contents. What we get is about 97 minutes of manipulative girls arguing.

The whole first half of the movie is as boring as can be with endless chit chat and plenty of dramatics. The later half gets somewhat interesting when the plot shifts gears and the emotion is layed on even thicker. When its all said and done it makes for a pretty depressing movie. Its just to bad that nothing really happens at all.

Billy Jean is a teenager who drops out of school and gets a gob dancing at some shit-hole bar where she makes three dollars a day. Her back stabbing older sisters rat Billy Jean out to their neglectful mother, Momma Rosie. Momma Rosie has a knack for getting knocked up by different men and having daughters. She gives her kids a roof over their heads but that is about it. Lets just say there isn't any love in the air. Momma Rosie also likes taking in stray runaway kids and prefers one in particular over her own children. This of course results in jealousy and hatred for the runaway foster child. Billy Jean and her older sisters come up with a plan to get rid of mommy's little golden child.

This thing was directed by the same guy who did Cotton Comes To Harlem which I have not yet seen but I'm sure it has to be more interesting then this one. If you are into exploitation films do yourself a favor and avoid Black Girl. That is unless you really dig boo-hoo sappy stories about under privileged African American girls.

Fans of the first movie should be prepared to be let down. Penitentiary 2 really just doesn't hold up to the original. Too Sweet is on parole and doing the best he can at a dead end job to keep out of trouble and stay far away from the big house. The last thing he wants is to end up in the same hell hole that he fought for his life in Penitentiary but sure enough Too Sweet gets the short end of the stick yet again and is convinced to go back to boxing.

This time with Mr. T in his corner Too Sweet is forced to fight one of his old prison enemies. This time around the enemy is played by a completely different actor. Ernie Hudson from Ghostbusters puts on a clown wig and kills Too Sweet's girlfriend. Its pretty obvious what goes on from here. We get some vengeance and some boxing but the general story is weak in comparison to the first film as is the fight scenes.

On a more positive note we get a crazy little midget who brings some entertainment to the screen and Hi-Fi the drag queen shows up again for some more cross dressing madness. I am yet to see the third film in the Peniteentiary series but I hear that its not much better then this waste of time. Stick with the first film for some bad-ass boxing, psycho jail-birds and some slick dialogue.

Here's a weird one from Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary). This twisted blaxploitation flick tells of a black man named Charles or "Brother Charles" who is apprehended by the white police and of course brutalized. They nearly beat him to death upon his capture and go as far as to castrate him.

Well at least they try to castrate him.?.? Once Brother Charles time is served he hits the streets and learns that his old bitches are being pimped by the new players in town. Brother Charles claims he is going to live a straight life without drugs and hookers but in reality he is planning his revenge on the scum that nearly took his manhood.

There is no doubt that Soul Vengeance also known as Welcome Home Brother Charles is a movie from mars but no matter how bizarre it is, the truth is its a pretty boring movie. This is amongst the earliest of Fanaka films and the ineptitude and the total lack of money really shows through and not necessarily in a very good way either.

Right off the bat the main character is supposed to be a ladies man but he is no Fred Williamson. I think Brother Charles has to be just about the ugliest man in blaxploitation history. The Hamburger Pimp in Dolemite is more likely to get some pussy then this dude. Then again whats in appearance?

Okay so this cat gets all the bitches and luckily for us that means we get some nudity. Not so lucky for us some of these girls look like Brother Charles with less facial hair. Yuck! We get some titty swinging at the local "Bottomless Bar" which isn't bottomless at all. We get some sweet, jive 70's jargon and some real smooth cats in some super-bad clothes. We have some of the worst white people in blaxploitation history and a ending that will shock your cock off.

Its never explained in great detail or even very clearly but apparently when the pigs tried to cut off Charles penis, they left it hanging on. For some reason while Charles was behind bars his rocket grew to abnormal size and he acts out his vengeance with his giant black wang. Brother Charles uses his giant garden hose of a cock to hypnotize the wives of the police who did him wrong. Then he strangles the cops with his penis and that's pretty much the whole movie.

If it wasn't for the final revenge scenes Soul Vengeance wouldn't be worth a dime. Add in some dead cops and strangulation by a vengeful penis and we have something worth watching. Maybe not more then once but I find it to be a nice little novelty amongst my stacks of tasteless exploitation flicks! This one reminded me of a blaxploitation version of Deadly Weapons. They would make an excellent double feature. Revenge through giant black cock and revenge through giant mellon heavy jugs. Genius!

The poster art displayed above is not the original art at all. It was drawn out by a fan-boy in hopes to sell some copies of his work at a local screening of The Last Dragon. I however find it to be way cooler then the original American art or even the Spanish poster.

The Last Dragon used to play regularly on television when I was a young kid. For some reason or other my father wouldn't allow me to watch it. My old man has always been big on censorship but looking at this movie now I really have no clue to why my father wouldn't let me watch this movie. Perhaps pops was a bit of a racist... Then again he also wouldn't allow me to watch wrestling when I was a kid. I guess he really just had something against exaggerated violence in movies, even if it was a silly {PG13} 1980's flick. All I know is there really isn't anything all that realistically violent and its a pretty goofy movie all the way through. After all it was the 80's. What wasn't goofy from that time?

The Last Dragon tells of a young African American martial artist named Leroy Green who worships the great Bruce Lee. Naturally he calls himself Bruce Leroy and that's what the folks around town know him as. Bruce Leroy follows the philosophy of the real Bruce Lee and vows to never use physical violence against another human unless there is no other choice. Needless to say there is no other alternative once Leroy crosses paths with an angry street punk named Sho'nuff "The Shogun Of Harlem". Sho'nuff wants Leroy in a street fight and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He destroys Leroy's family pizza shop and eventually kidnaps his girlfriend. Leroy has no choice but to give The Shogun Of Harlem what he wants.

There are a lot of really cool scenes in this movie. My personal favorite moment takes place in a kung-fu, movie-house which is screening Enter The Dragon. We get a bad-ass fist fight in the movie theater which I have been lucky enough to witness in real life. Unfortunately there wasn't any crazy martial arts going on when I witnessed this. Maybe that's because Dead Alive was playing rather then a kung-fu classic.

Aside from the fact that The Last Dragon has some cool moments it isn't really a great movie. The main problem is that between the kung-fu scenes we have all these shitty musical numbers. It almost plays like a musical or a bad MTV video.

This thing was directed by the guy who did Cooly High and Which Way Is Up which would explain why The Last Dragon is more of a comedy then anything you can take seriously. It does offer up some excellent midget-fu, really silly dialogue "Kiss my converse" and scenes from much better movies like The Big Boss and The Chinese Connection. Check it out if you want some cheap laughs with your kung fu but be sure to fast forward through all the shitty singing and dancing. This ain't Bollywood!

Awesome blaxploitation film that takes place almost entirely inside a prison. Written and directed by Jamma Fanaka (Soul Vengeance, Penitentiary 2) and tells the tale of a black man named Too Sweet who is imprisoned after being attacked by two bikers and killing one in self defense. Naturally the fight happens amongst white folk and since this is the 70's its safe to say they were racist white folk.

This jail is full of some crazy motha-fuckers. Upon Too Sweet's arrival to the big house he encounters some nutty bastards. One of them keeps lit cigarettes in his ear, not behind his ear... In his ear, and asks fellow cellmates for a "light". Then we get this crazy dude who covers his face with shaving cream and in a fit of rage demands to see the jail-house-punks ass. Things get worse from here on when Too Sweet's manhood is threatened by the degenerate rapist who bunks with him. Apparently in prison you should never except a candy bar from a cellmate because this means they are going to take your man-ass by force. Too Sweet being the bad-ass mother fucker that he is kicks the shit out of the rape-happy, candy bar guy and makes it known that he ain't nobodies bitch.

Next Too Sweet befriends a coward and teaches him to stand up for himself. This brings a whole world of trouble for Too Sweet and it becomes apparent that his stay in the big-house is going to be a rough ride with many enemy's.

Eventually Penitentiary turns into a boxing movie that makes Rocky look like The Sound Of Music. A boxing league is formed and the winner gets to spend the night with a woman. There are some good looking chocolate mama's in this flick and we do get some naked flesh. The fight scenes are pretty cool as well and while its not quite Raging Bull, Penitentiary makes for a good knock-em-out flick. We also get some awesomely typical blaxploitation dialogue and the big life affirming speech comes from an old man who has spent almost his entire life behind bars. There is also a bit of an unexpected twist in the plot which was nice to see and makes Penitentiary perhaps just a step above the average 70's blaxploitation film.

Apparently the sequel is even more entertaining on a much more exploitative level but I have not yet seen that one. However it is on the list of things to watch before I die and the sooner the better. This movie makes prison look scarier then any other with the exception of maybe Zombie Death House and if I learned anything it is to keep your ass out of jail.

Slaughter's Big Rip-Off is the follow up to Jim Brown's Slaughter (1972). This time around Gordon Douglas (Who most would remember for his giant killer ant movie Them) directs big Jim Brown through what ends up being a much better film then the original.


The film opens up with Slaughter having a nice picnic with his girl and a few friends when suddenly a plane flies over there heads and opens fire on their cute little picnic. Slaughter's friend catches a bullet and looses his life. Of course this means only one thing... Revenge! And revenge Slaughter gets, against the mobsters, the cops, and the pimps... All while he sticks it to the white man by stickin-it to white women, Even though were missing Stella Stevens this time.

Jim Browns character is much more likable all around this time. He has better lines, "Hey baby its me Slaughter. The baddest cat that ever walked the earth". Better brawls, "How would you like to be pickin your teeth outta your lips?". Better action sequences including a scene where he takes a typical 70's style plunge off of a cliff in a car and actually survives it. Oh yeah and his love-making has improved as well. In fact when he needs some secret information from a foxy white woman he bribes her with his body "Just come to daddy and we will see what we can do".


Even the violence is stepped up quite a bit with a few nice head shots, complete with exploding squibs. We also get a strangulation by floaty in a swimming pool followed by a drowning, a Scarface style mutilated body hanging in a shower stall, and a great scene where Slaughter takes on three racist hicks at an airport. One of which played by the one and only Hoke Howell who I remember best for his amazing role in Sidehackers as the dumb redneck who tells really bad jokes and cackles like a maniac, has his head being pushed towards a spinning propeller on a airplane as Slaughter threatens to "Cut his fucking head off".  Scatman Crothers also shows up in this one but the real entertainment comes from Joey The Pimp. He has the amazing 70's pimp-gear and amazing jive jargon that spills from his mouth-piece.

This one shouldn't let down the Blaxploitation fans. Its pretty damn fun and it blows the original out of the watter.

Now this movie is fucking awesome! Its the tale of a clean cut preppy jock/medical student who becomes possessed by the demonic spirit of a dead gangster named J.D. Walker. Under J.D.'s spell our clean cut wimp becomes one bad-ass, straight razor wielding, girlfriend beating, priest bashing, rapist, psychopath.
J.D.'s Revenge differs from the average Blaxploitation flick in the sense that it starts off slow and has a bad ending but the rest of the movie is awesome. Usually these low budget black action films start off with a bang and then really slow down until the final.
Glynn Turman plays our possessed antihero and he does a great job with his personality changes between evil J.D. Walker and boring straight laced college kid.  This thing was directed by Artur Marks, The same cat who did Bucktown and Monkey Hu$tle. The nature of this film places J.D.'s Revenge in the slim Horror/Blaxploitation genre along with films like Blacula and of course Abby which is a better known possession (Exorcist ripoff) Blaxploitation flick.
This one also offers up its fair share of nudity with typical strip club scenes and of course some sweet love making scenes. We also get a few rape scenes and the most memorable one shows a woman being tossed around the house and having her clothes ripped off by our scar-faced gangster. She is bruised up pretty good and it makes for a heart pounding scene. The violence seems to escalate as the film goes on. We get slaughter house footage, which seems to have been a fad in the 70's. Some throat slashing, shoot outs, a old lady is banged up in the back of a cab with some demonic taxi driving and we also get some nasty knife fights.
In one of my personal favorite scenes a criminal is comparing a priest to a pimp. The criminal claims that the lord is like a fix that the junkies on the street need and a preacher is nothing but a king-pimp and the whores name is Jesus. Unfortunately in the end the film seems to have some what of a demented religious message to it but all in all J.D.'s Revenge is a super-bad 70's flick with pimp-wear, jive talky-talk and the perfect amount of nudity and violence. Check it out cause "They were right. This nigga's crazy".

Not to be mistaken for the 1978 rape/revenge movie of the same title but this French exploitation flick is also the tale of revenge. This one has a pretty unique plot. It stars Christian Marquand from And God Created Woman, who plays Joe Grant. Joe is a light skinned black man and his brother is lynched by the racist towns-folk after being accused of raping a white woman, who was his soon to be bride. Joe leaves town and plots out a revenge in the name of his brother but instead finds himself in the same situation.
I Spit On Your Grave (1959) is a hard film to categorize because its almost like a early sexploition film in the fact that it is so sexually charged with lots of pretty women in teasing skimpy clothing. There is also a bit of nudity on display. Its also almost a early blaxploitation film due to the subject matter and racial tension within the film.
One thing that I picked up on was a coincidence with the 1978 film. There is a line in this movie that strikes a big similarity with the tagline for Meir Zarchi's film. "There isn't a jury in America that will convict you". The brilliant exploitation tagline for the 78' film states "There isn't a Jury in America that will convict her for what she's done...". Can't help but wonder if this connection was done purposely.
I Spit On Your Grave (1959) is exploitive and yet has a sense of class to it, with nice cinematography and good acting. The girls are attractive and a bit of violence helps this one moving along. It also has an amazingly realistic scene where a black man is set on fire and the camera doesn't cut away. We see the body burn up, completely smothered in flames.
For some reason this one reminded me or Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor. Check it out for something a little different.

Its kind of hard to believe they could mess this one up. Instead of one we get three of the genre icons. Jim (Slaughter) Brown's girlfriend is kidnapped by a white fascist group whom plots a genocide against the black man. Jim Brown teams up with Jim Kelly (Black Belt Jones) and Fred Williamson from movies like Black Caesar, Legend Of Niger Charlie and Hell Up In Harlem. The three blaxploitation super stars go to war with the white fascists and get Jim Brown's woman back.
The plot is ridiculous and the action scenes are all pretty lame. The movie doesn't even get slightly entertaining until Jim The Dragon Kelly shows up and kicks a bunch of cops ass in a pretty amazing kung fu scene. Kelly blurts out his usual weird keeyah's and refuses to use a gun. Williamson and Brown's characters are both pretty lame and the shoot-em-up scenes get boring and repetitive pretty fast. Three The Hard Way was directed by the same cat who did Super Fly but really lacks in every department. Skip this one and take home Five The Hard Way also know as Sidehackers staring the great Ross Hagen.