The Best of Sex and Violence

Ageing horror icon John Carradine hosts a compilation of twenty-eight trailers for a variety of weird and wonderful exploitation movies, ranging from low budget biker flick to sexy fairytale, from grindhouse horror to blaxploitation.

What makes The Best of Sex and Violence a success is the range and obscurity of the titles covered. I consider myself well-versed in trashy B-movies, but there were plenty of titles here that I hadn't seen, and even a few that were totally unknown to me.

After entertaining trailers for female biker movie Bury Me An Angel, crazy heist caper The Doberman Gang (in which dogs are trained to rob banks), and the very strange Tunnel Vision, Carradine gets into sexy mode for The Sin of Adam and Eve (which looks worth a watch for the very lovely and often naked actress known only as Kandy), erotic versions of Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella, a film called Fairytales (that is definitely for adults), Emanuelle Around The World, starring Laura Gemser, and Tanya's Island, in which Vanity gets raunchy with an ape!

After all of that T&A, it's onto the violence: I Spit On Your Grave, Tourist Trap, The Boogeyman, and Zombie, all of which I expect most avid horror fans will have seen.

The next handful of trailers are a mixed bag: The Single Girls (which I've seen and didn't like), The Working Girls, The Manhandlers, Dr Minx, Truck Stop Women, The Twilight People (my favourite trailer of the whole lot-it looks absolutely insane), Beyond Atlantis, The Devil's Wedding Night (another that I've seen, a so-so piece of Euro-sleaze), Sweet Sugar (which looks like trashy fun), Terminal Island (a forerunner of Ray Liotta movie No Escape), and Ebony, Ivory and Jade.

The remainder of The Best of Sex and Violence is devoted to blaxploitation: Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, Dolemite, The Human Tornado (I got a dong as big as King Kong), and Disco Godfather.

Between each trailer, Carradine cracks a few lame quips, and is joined at the end by his sons, David and Keith, who look distinctly uncomfortable about being involved.

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for all of the hilarious hyperbolic voiceovers (example: Flashing fists of fury strike like vipers of vengeance!).

1981's Wizard Video release "The Best of Sex and Violence" features 28 trailers from the 1970s, the last decade of drive-in heaven, where it's likely that not one of these titles lost money at the box office. Apart from some bleeped language they're uncensored, with violence and nudity aplenty, exactly what the title promises, and no doubt helping producer Charles Band move quite a few units in his early 80s VHS catalog. 'Special Host' is the legendary scene stealer John Carradine, working with quips written by regular Band screenwriter Frank Ray Perilli, whose career as a forgotten actor included a teaming with Bob Ball in the 1962 Jonathan Haze-scripted AIP cheapie "Invasion of the Star Creatures." Some of these films are known under multiple titles: "Emmanuelle Around the World" aka "Confessions of Emmanuelle," "Sweet Sugar" aka "She Devils in Chains," "Ebony Ivory and Jade" aka "Savage Sisters" (several of the sexy scenes were reused in another Charles Band compilation from director Ken Dixon, "Famous T&A," hosted by Sybil Danning). 1980's "The Boogie Man" is the one John Carradine film included, and many of his comments must have been ad-libbed, discussing some of his earlier features like "The Sign of the Cross," "The Invisible Man," "Bride of Frankenstein," "The Prisoner of Shark Island," "Jesse James," "The Grapes of Wrath," and "The Invisible Man's Revenge," actor friends such as Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn, and director Cecil B. DeMille (an archival cameo from Angelo Rossitto comes from a newsreel). He frequently references his experience in horror films, lamenting that as Dracula he never got any naked girls, conveniently forgetting 1978's "Vampire Hookers." Five minutes from the end, sons David and Keith show up for some priceless comic banter with their famous father, delightfully off the cuff, with Keith finally convulsed with laughter. We even get a climactic glimpse at the explosion from Band's 1978 "End of the World," a film that had been announced for Carradine, who did not appear (a major reason for star Christopher Lee's disappointment). A ubiquitous presence in video stores of the era, this compilation inexplicably also played occasional drive-ins under the title "Screams of Flesh and Blood," as part of an all night horror show with Paul Naschy's "Night of the Howling Beast," Herschell Gordon Lewis' "The Wizard of Gore" (retitled "House of Torture"), George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," and Al Adamson's "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" (retitled "They're Coming to Get You"), making for a 1980s John Carradine/Lon Chaney Jr. twin bill. The 2011 DVD release is notably worse than old VHS copies, but is at least inexpensive, a pleasant reminder of a bygone age when cinema was still no-holds-barred, and delightfully politically incorrect.

It's not really any thanks to Mr Dixon that this is such fun. The John Carradine links are at best vaguely amusing and at worst, inaudible or embarrassing. It is astonishing towards the end when even sons David and Keith are somehow talked into appearing, but dad does say something to the effect that have they no work to do to which there is a mumbled reply suggesting that maybe not after this! So embarrassing for the Carradines and just a few blaxploitation fight scenes too many, that seem not even to come under the overall title, but still the sordid 70s product shines through! Particularly good to see the 'I Spit On Your Grave' trail and an interesting one for 'Tourist Trap' and a film called, 'Single Girls', which was new to me and had the line; (whether from the film or just the trailer) 'If we can't get a man easy, then we get him hard'. the overlong blaxploitation segment starts well with, 'Dolemite' and 'Human Tornado' both spoken over by the man himself. All in all an interesting document and a super snapshot of a unique period of cinema history.

THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE is a rather mistitled trailer compilation. The trailers are cobbled together with nothing in common; some don't even feature sex or violence! They are pretty memorable, though, and it's great to see them all on one tape. But John Carradine was a mistake. His dialogue is embarrassing and stupid; how did he feel doing this? Then again, how could he have any shame? Over 3/4 of his movies are pieces of garbage! I recommend BEST OF to those looking for a nice sampler of psychotronic titles to seek out, but nothing more.

My god! Did the producers of the movies these trailers were from really think that anyone would spend their hard earned two dollars to watch this trash. What is surprising is how many of them really thought this trash would fly.

However, collectively this compendium is a hilarious reminder of the simplicity of the human mind and how little it has evolved over 70 to 80 years of movie making.

If any words over two syllables gives you a headache and you have the attention span of a firefly, you will love this film?