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.

Best of Sex and Violence, The (1981)

** (out of 4)

John Carradine hosts this documentary that shows trailers to countless horror, exploitation, sexploitation and blaxploitation pictures from the 60s to the late 70s. I'm sure when this film was originally released it was a great guide for fans of the genres to see pictures and then try to rent them at their local stores. I'm sure store owners would love having a copy of this because if people were willing to rent this then more than likely they were willing to come back for the films featured here. Many people love watching trailers but I'm not one of them yet I enjoyed this video because of Carradine. I was expecting just random jokes and discussion but that wasn't the case because everything Carradine says matches up to watch we're actually seeing. If we see a trailer for THE DOBERMAN GANG he will make a joke or comment on that film. There's a section on sexploitation that shows trailers for Cinderella (1977) and EMANUELLE AROUND THE WORLD and Carradine mentions that these sex pictures are great for certain things because when he was a kid he only had the Sears Catalog. The screenwriters also allow Carradine time to joke about his own life including some of the films he's made as well as a very funny joke about his old buddy Errol Flynn and another joke about Cecil B. DeMille. What really shocked me as well is how energized Carradine is. He was certainly just picking up a paycheck but that doesn't keep him from going all out and delivers a fun little performance. He also manages to show off his comic timing and he actually makes the majority of the jokes work. One of the best moments happens towards the end when his sons David and Keith make a cameo appearance and joke with their dad about borrowing the car and money. This little sequence is quite a priceless moment. It's also worth noting that the majority of the prints shown look horrible and it's funny to think that before DVD this is how fans had to view these films. Other trailers include: THE SIN OF ADAM AND EVE, THE BOOGEYMAN, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, ZOMBIE, BEYOND ATLANTIS, THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE, DR. MIX, DR. BLACK MR HYDE, SHE DEVILS IN CHAINS and countless others.

I've never seen so much 70s exploitation, sex, humor, and violence in one film! This one has it all I recommend it to all fans of exploitation cinema.

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?