George Eastman Movies

While experimenting with a cure for immortality, a mad scientist decides to become his own test subject. ~ John Bush, Rovi

The professional wrestling world's battling "Barbarian Brothers" are featured as the heroes in this sword-and-sorcery fantasy film. They're out to rescue their lovely queen and retrieve a magic ruby, stolen from them years before. ~ Rovi

The relationships between five men who play cards far into the night on Christmas Eve are the focus of this psychological drama by Pupi Avati. Four of the players are out to skin the fifth, industrial tycoon Santelia (Carlo Delle Piane), but the four are not exactly a united front. Theater-owner Franco (Diego Abatantuono) is nearly bankrupt and harbors a deep and well-founded resentment against Ugo (Gianni Cavina), a wacko television host. Film critic Lele (Alessandro Haber) has his own insecurities, and Stefano (George Eastman) is simply trying to keep the game and the men together. As flashbacks reveal past loves and peccadilloes, antagonisms and alliances, the relationships at the card game are turned around into something completely different by the time Saint Nick has finished his rounds. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This standard, Southern-fried action-thriller stars Michael Sopkiw as an embittered cop just released from prison after serving a lengthy term for killing the man who murdered his wife. Wishing for a peaceful, serene change of pace and a chance to catch up with his daughter, he moves to rural Georgia to live off the land. Alas, this pastoral existence is short-lived, thanks to a sleazy group of poachers who supply an even sleazier scientist with live animals for sadistic biological experiments. This minor effort from Lamberto Bava (son of legendary Italian horror maestro Mario Bava) represents a bit of a tangent from that director's earlier giallo thrillers or gore-drenched horror projects but sticks pretty closely to the basic revenge-driven, blood-and-guts action formula. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Cult filmmaker Sergio Martino directed this violent sci-fi actioner, one of many to pour out of Italy in the wake of Mad Max (1979). Michael Sopkiw stars as Parsifal, who travels to New York in order to rescue the last fertile woman on Earth following a nuclear holocaust. Graphic scenes of rape and murder await the viewer, as well as rats, midgets, and subway-riding revolutionaries. Edmund Purdom and Luigi Montefiori (aka "George Eastman") are among the familiar supporting cast. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

One of many post-apocalyptic science-fiction films which poured out of Europe in the wake of George Miller's Mad Max, this film stars Stefania Girolami as Anna, who runs away from her wealthy but obnoxious family into the surrealistic biker gangland of the Bronx. There, she meets Trash (Marco de Gregorio), part of a gang called The Riders, and soon falls in love with him. Problems arise when Anna's father (Enio Girolami), president of the evil Manhattan Corporation, sends in a psychopath named Hammer (Vic Morrow) to stir up trouble among the rival gangs, including a black club led by Ogre (Fred Williamson) and a rollerskating group led by Golem (Luigi Montefiori). Castellari's direction is surprisingly stylish and exciting, but all of the hyper-macho posturing eventually grows tiresome for anyone over fifteen. Still, undemanding viewers will have a good time, as the action keeps coming fast and furious, laced with suitably hardbitten dialogue by director Enzo G. Castellari, Elisa Livia Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti. A minor classic of testosterone cinema, followed by several sequels starting with Fuga dal Bronx (1983). ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Blood and gore abound as good takes on evil in this futuristic sci-fi actioner that is basically a knock-off of the Mad Max series with a low-budget Italian twist. The year is 2020 and the setting is post-nuclear holocaust Texas. It's a dusty, nasty world now as can be seen in the opening scenes when a band of drunken outlaws viciously rape and murder innocent nuns at a mission. They then crucify the priest. Their debauched reveling is interrupted by roving rangers who engage the villains in a blood-soaked, bone crunching fight. The rangers manage to save a terrified young woman from the melee, and the heroic leader and she fall in love and head for the peaceful land she describes to him. Years pass. The hero and the girl are married and she is pregnant. He is working at a refinery. Trouble erupts when a meglomaniacal Neo-Nazi dictator and his cruel minions attack the heavily fortified refinery and begin trying to convert the hapless workers to his insane idea of the New Order. Of course, the hero, after witnessing the rape of his wife, decides to get revenge. Unfortunately, the dictator blows the hero away with a machine gun. More time passes and the workers have become slaves to their new leader, but fortunately at this point, the story is far from over and eventually after considerably more blood is graphically spilled, the forces of good inevitably triumph. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this Z-grade Italian "gorror" movie, an American student and her friends go on a tour of the Greek islands and find themselves victimized and eaten by a disfigured psychotic cannibal who thinks that eating the flesh of strangers will help him atone for eating his own family after they were shipwrecked. Italian shlockmeister Joe D'Amato directed this yummy bit of fun. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A scientific expedition is launched to examine strange biological mutations on a deserted island that was once used for nuclear testing. There are rumors of crabs, turtles, and rodents growing to massive sizes on the remote island, as well as stories of a terrible monster who killed a local fisherman's son. A coed group of biologists and physicists gather to catch a boat that has been chartered for them under heavy security. Before setting sail, however, they indulge in some carnal delights. One woman, tired of her husband's sexual dysfunction, turns to lesbianism, while another visits a brothel and pays two men to ravage her. Meanwhile, the ship's captain begins a tender (but torrid) romance with a beautiful biologist named Annie. When the scientists get to the island, they learn that the native fauna is indeed affected by radioactivity, though that's the least of their problems. The government thought the island had been evacuated before conducting their nuclear tests, but they missed one family. With his parents long gone, the deformed offspring has grown into a vicious killer who rapes and/or murders the members of the expedition one by one. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi

No director has mixed graphic horror and explicit sex more often than Aristide Massaccesi (better known as Joe D'Amato), and no director has come up with worse results. This sleazy tale stars Luigi Montefiori as the captain of a boat hired to take an American architect (Mark Shanon) and a prostitute (Dirce Funari) to a cursed island so the architect can scout locations for hotel development. They come across a mysterious woman (Laura Gemser), cannibalistic zombie natives, and a ghost-cat. There is also a great deal of hardcore sex and a scene in which a stripper opens a champagne bottle with her private parts. Massaccesi made the similarly explicit Porno Holocaust, about a radioactive mutant, the same year. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Originally titled D.A.'s Investigator, Kiss Me Kill Me stars Stella Stevens as Stella Stafford, "leg woman" for the LA district attorney's office. The case at hand is the murder of a young, highly respected schoolteacher. Stella is certain that she has the killer dead to rights--but this is before she learns the down-and-dirty about the murder victim's secret life. Supporting Ms. Stevens is an impressive guest cast, including Dabney Coleman, Pat O'Brien, Bruce Boxleitner and Robert Vaughn. First telecast May 8, 1976, Kiss Me Kill Me was the pilot for an intended TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An unreleased suspense thriller from Italy's master of horror and fantasy, Mario Bava, Rabid Dogs makes its belated debut in this special DVD release. When a bank robbery goes awry for a pair of violent criminals, they take an innocent woman hostage, who must fight for her survival. Shot mostly inside a speeding car, this tense and claustrophobic drama was filmed in 1974 (five years before Bava's death), but shortly before completion the death of one of the principal financiers threw the project into limbo. In 1998, the film's elements were rediscovered and editing was completed using Bava's notes as a guide; the result is a film that takes a decidedly modern detour from Bava's traditional Gothic subject matter and gives a much broader perspective on the range of his talents. A few years later, the film was reworked and retitled Kidnapped for a brief theatrical run in the U.S. That version of the film would later be released on DVD by Anchor Bay, with the original, Rabid Dogs cut included as supplimental material. Curiously enough, the version of Rabid Dogs featured on the Kidnapped disc still differs from the version of the film previously released by Lucertola. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi